The National Federation of the Blind is charging America Online (AOL) -- the nation's largest Internet access provider, serving 20 million customers -- with keeping visually impaired people from accessing the online service in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Reuters reports.

Filing suit against the company in Boston's federal court, the federation claims AOL has designed its proprietary access software in a way that is incompatible with access software used by the blind to "read" what is on the screen.

A spokesperson for the federation told Reuters "AOL has steadfastly refused to modify its software in order to ensure compatibility" with those screen reader programs.

However, AOL spokesman Richard D'Amato told Reuters the company was "proud of and absolutely committed to" the work it has done to make the online experience more accessible.

"The next version of AOL software will include a text to voice interface, more robust keystroke shortcuts that are instrumental to the blind," D'Amato stated. "Making AOL fully accessible is a major priority for us."

Several accessibility products offer solutions for Internet access and Web surfing for those who cannot use the information otherwise. Programs for blind people, for instance, may read the onscreen text aloud or translate it into Braille. How well these options work usually depends on the effectiveness of the software and the Web site's design.

However, the federation claims AOL's proprietary software -- which must be used to access content from AOL's servers -- cannot be used by a blind person, since it requires mouse movement and mouse clicks on graphics that cannot be seen or translated by text-to-voice software.

(AOL provides access to the wider Internet through its online service, but harkens back to the days before widespread Internet access by specializing in original content that can only be seen through its software by its subscribers.)

Representatives of some companies that specialize in accessibility software for the blind said their products could easily be made to work with AOL's software, Reuters reports.

"Now could a small company set up a front-end to AOL that would allow blind people access to AOL?" Kelly Lumpkin, CEO of Alternate Access, told Reuters. "Absolutely. I could set one up in my kitchen."

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