IE required: The government gets it wrong

"In order to use this site, you must have JavaScript enabled and Internet Explorer Version 6. Download it from Microsoft or call 1-800-621-FEMA (3362) to register."
- from the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Individual Assistance Center

At the end of August there was a stir when the U.S. Copyright Office announced that to preregister eligible copyright claims under the (take a deep breath now . . .) Artists' Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2005 (the ART Act), Title I of the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, Pub. L. No. 109-9, 119 Stat. 218 (whew!), which the office is required to do under (here we go again) Section 104 of the ART Act, 17 U.S.C. 408(f)(1), by Oct. 24, you would have to use Microsoft Internet Explorer.

The Copyright Office continued with: "Support for Netscape 7.2, Firefox 1.0.3 and Mozilla 1.7.7 is planned but will not be available when preregistration goes into effect. Present users of these browsers may experience problems when filing claims."

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"In order to use this site, you must have JavaScript enabled and Internet Explorer Version 6. Download it from Microsoft or call 1-800-621-FEMA (3362) to register."
- from the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Individual Assistance Center

At the end of August there was a stir when the U.S. Copyright Office announced that to preregister eligible copyright claims under the (take a deep breath now . . .) Artists' Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2005 (the ART Act), Title I of the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, Pub. L. No. 109-9, 119 Stat. 218 (whew!), which the office is required to do under (here we go again) Section 104 of the ART Act, 17 U.S.C. 408(f)(1), by Oct. 24, you would have to use Microsoft Internet Explorer.

The Copyright Office continued with: "Support for Netscape 7.2, Firefox 1.0.3 and Mozilla 1.7.7 is planned but will not be available when preregistration goes into effect. Present users of these browsers may experience problems when filing claims."

The result of this startlingly bad decision was that everyone, particularly the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), was up in arms. The Copyright Office defended itself by arguing that the mandated date for implementation required them to make trade-offs, so Internet Explorer it was. Apparently they were using Siebel, which limited their browser support and, well, blah, blah, blah.

The bottom line is that the Copyright Office made a bad decision. Had it bothered to pay attention to what its target users not only need but expect, it wouldn't have wound up with pie on its face.

As if that weren't enough warning for government wonks to think carefully about which browsers their Web site should support, this week in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, we find that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) made the same mistake. And in a place where it was, to say the least, highly visible: The Individual Assistance Center, a Web site for people to register for aid!

So if you were sitting somewhere in the South a few days ago, at, say, your Macintosh, with polluted water swirling around your ankles and alligators sitting outside your front door, and you thought, "Maybe I should apply for some aid," you would have been disappointed when you got to the assistance center.

After making you take a Turing test (you know, enter the visually distorted word to prove you are human ... tough luck if you are visually impaired), you would have been informed that without Internet Explorer 6, you were SOL. But call us. Really. We do want to help. Honest. Call us.

By now, I think you know me. I am not a fan of any legislation that attempts to define how technology should work, but here I will make an exception. There needs to be a bill that mandates a standard that defines a lowest common denominator of access that must be implemented by all government Web sites.

The standard must allow for full access by all browsers that correctly - let me say that again: "correctly" - implement W3C standards. It must allow for end users who don't have the latest and greatest browser. It must not favor any vendor. It must allow and assist end users whose browsers are misconfigured or who are disabled. It must not allow agencies to require JavaScript, plug-ins or any other browser enhancement that could result in weakening the security of an end user's computer.