Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

Oracle is being taken to task in a lawsuit that complains software it sold to the state of Texas is unusable by blind employees.

By Dan Goodin in San Francisco for The Register.

This story has been reproduced with permission.

The suit, filed in Texas state court, alleges Oracle's human resources software and other products do "not provide equal access to blind persons using screen access technology". One plaintiff says he is unable to review or enter hours worked, leave taken or information concerning employees he supervises without the help of a sighted colleague.

The suit names Oracle and at least three Texas officials. It alleges the Oracle software replaced a package that was largely accessible to blind users.

Oracle declined to comment. Texas officials didn't have an immediate comment.

This isn't the first time IT people have landed in hot water with advocates of the blind. The National Federation for the Blind, which filed the suit along with three Texas employees, sued took aim at the inability of Target's website to work with end-user programs that read and describe content audibly.

Today's suit is just the latest for Oracle. In December it was sued by a former business partner in Saudi Arabia for allegedly keeping a joint venture between the two from keeping proper accounting books so it didn't have to pay the partner what it was owed, according MarketWatch.

Among other things, the partner is suing Oracle for alleged violation of Islamic duty enforced by Saudi law.

© The Register 2007

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