Why accessibility overlays get you sued
The 'accessibility button' in the corner of a site is the most-sued fix there is. The FTC fined a leading vendor $1M, and 800+ overlay users were sued anyway. Here's why.
You have probably seen them: a little accessibility icon in the corner of a website that pops open a panel of toggles. These are accessibility overlays, and they are sold as a one-click route to compliance. They are also the single most-litigated accessibility 'fix' on the market. Here is why.
They run too late to help
An overlay is JavaScript that loads after your page does. Screen readers have already read the page by then. So the overlay cannot fix the things a claim is actually built on — missing form labels, keyboard traps, unlabelled buttons, bad heading structure. Those live in the code underneath, untouched.
The regulators have noticed
In April 2025 the US Federal Trade Commission fined a leading overlay vendor $1,000,000 for claiming its widget made sites compliant when it did not. More than 800 businesses running an overlay have been sued anyway — and in court, the widget is treated as evidence that the business knew about the problem and chose a shortcut.
What works instead
The only durable fix is to correct the source: write real alt text into your product data, fix the theme, and label your forms. Then document it. That is slower than installing a widget — but it is the thing that actually makes a demand letter go away, and it does not expose you to a fresh claim.
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