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For people with disabilities, the Internet is more than a convenient way to interact with the world. It may be a primary way of expressing choices, handling money and shopping, pursuing personal interests, and being part of a community. In July 2000, AOL adopted an accessibility policy designed to improve the usability of products and services for people with disabilities. The policy begins with educating employees and establishing guidelines for product and technology development, and AOL is currently evaluating its performance in these areas. Collaboration with the disability community is also an essential component of AOL’s accessibility efforts. AOL has a contract in place with a vendor that employs people with disabilities to test accessibility support developed for priority products. AOL is also actively engaged in community activities, and regularly sponsors conferences such as the Assistive Technology Industry Association Leadership Forum and the CSUN Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference, as well as consumer conventions hosted by the National Association of the Deaf, Telecommunications for the Deaf Incorporated, and other organizations.

AOL has a history of making its products accessible to a broad and inclusive group of users, and has made great strides on behalf of deaf and hard-of-hearing people. In 2004, AOL launched AIM Relay Services to allow users to connect with telecommunication relay services right from their AIM Buddy Lists on their desktops or their cell phones. In 2007, AOL released website Basic – Accessible Version, a webmail product that was lauded by the National Federation of the Blind and other leading consumer organizations. Its interface allows users who are blind or have low vision to engage in a robust email experience that is highly compatible with screen reader software without the need for a computer mouse. Users will find it by visiting http://mail.aol.com and clicking “Accessible Version” on the footer. .

Warner Bros. makes its releases available with open and closed captions for the deaf and hard-of-hearing audience. Warner Bros. DVDs have captioning or subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing, and some titles have a description narration track for the blind. Warner Bros. also provides video description, captioning, and subtitles on the enhanced content (extra features) of the DVDs of all new theatrical releases. In 2006, 19 Warner Bros. releases were captioned, including Superman Returns, Happy Feet and The Departed; eight were released with video description. In 2007, all 22 releases were captioned and nine were also released with video description. At Turner, TNT carries an average of 26 descriptive video service hours per week and TCM carries video description on approximately 35 theatrical features per month or approximately 70 descriptive video service hours.