Beware of AI Accessibility Promises: US Federal Agency Fines an Overlay Company One Million Dollars After public comments, the Federal Trade Commission finalizes Order against accessiBe for misleading advertising

Posted on Updated on June 6, 2025

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This is an article about an action taken by a U.S. government agency against a company called accessiBe. The agency is called the Federal Trade Commission, or the FTC. AcessiBe sells an artificial intelligence (AI) product often called an overlay. AccessiBe has said its product can make websites accessible. The FTC got a complaint that accessiBe did not tell the truth when talking about its overlay. The FTC investigated and found that accessiBe had violated federal law by misrepresenting what its overlay could do. The FTC and accessiBe agreed that accessiBe would pay a one million dollar fine. They also agreed that the company would tell the truth in its ads. People can submit comments about the agreement until February 5, 2025. This article explains how to file comments and what they might say. Lainey’s comment is in the February 2 Update below. Comments can be filed online here.

This article was updated on June 6, 2025 to share that the Order against aginst accessiBe was approved! They were ordered to pay one million dollars and stop making fale claims about its services.

Article updated

This article has been updated since it was first published on January 7, 2025. The most recent update was added on June 6, 2025. Read the updates for this article.

official seal of the United States Federal Trade Commission. Image in center with scales and wings with agency name around in circle with year in roman numerals MCMXV (1915)

The new year brought weclomed digital accessibility news from the United States Federal Trade Commission, known as the FTC. The FTC is a federal (national) government agency whose mission is “protecting the public from deceptive or unfair business practices and from unfair methods of competition.”

On January 3, 2025, the FTC issued a press release with the headline:

FTC Order Requires Online Marketer to Pay $1 Million for Deceptive Claims that its AI Product Could Make Websites Compliant with Accessibility Guidelines

The Online Marketer is accessiBe. Its “AI Product” is commonly referred to as an overlay. You can read the press release here.

The accessiBe overlay has been a thorn in the side of disability inclusion in tech for many years. If you are new to the issue please read the Overlay Fact Sheet for more information and resources about how this product and others like it harm disabled people. If you want more information about this FTC case, overlay and accessibility expert Adrian Roselli has written a comprehensive piece here.


In this article you can read more about the following things. As with everything on this website, nothing written here is legal advice.

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What does the FTC Order say and how did this all start?

First off, someone filed a complaint with the FTC about accessiBe’s misrepresentations regarding what its overlay product can do. The FTC makes it easy to file a complaint, and has created a video (with captions and transcript) explaining the process.

The FTC did not make public the name of the person or persons who filed the complaint against accessiBe, but the information is not confidential. One of those people was author, lawyer, and global accessibility public speaker Haben Girma, who gave me permission to use her name in this post. I’d love to learn of others who might have contributed to getting the FTC to investigate accessiBe.

Haben’s advocacy is a good reminder that seemingly small acts by individual disabled people can lead to big changes. The FTC is just one federal agency that accepts complaints about access barriers. The Department of Justice, for example, accepts complaints about potential violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

While federal agencies and complaint processing may change under the republican administration, for now administrative complaints are a powerful enforcement tool for federal laws. (Many states also have similar processes.)

After receiving the complaint (and possibly others) the FTC investigated accessiBe and found that its advertising practices violated the Federal Trade Commission Act. AccessiBe and the FTC then negotiated an agreement that includes the one million dollar fine.

I found the FTC process confusing. There is one 3 page document called “Agreement containing consent order” which they also call a “Consent Agreement.” That document was signed by both accessiBe and the FTC. Attached to that is a 10 page “Decision and Order” that includes the 1 million dollar fine and specifics about misrepresentations. These two documents are in one file here – For convenience, I’m calling both of them the agreement.

The agreement is not just about money. It also prevents accessiBe from continuing practices that the FTC believes violate the law.

For example, accessiBe cannot say (either expressly or by implication) that its overlay products or services can make any website compliant with WCAG. It also cannot make misrepresentations about endorsers (such as saying an endorser is a neutral product user when in fact they are paid by accessiBe.)

Hallelujah!

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What’s Next?

Even though accessiBe agreed to both the million dollar fine and the requirements that it will not misrepresent what an overlay can do or who the product endorsers are, the FTC process is not yet over. Two more things have to happen: First, there is a thirty day period ending February 5 during which the public can comment on the agreement (more on that below).

Second, the FTC has to formally approve the agreement for it to become final. Since final approval has to wait until the close of the comment period, the FTC must take this action under the republican administration that takes office on January 20.

While anything can happen, I have hope that the 5-person commission will approve the agreement. This was a unanimous decision and 2 of the 5 commissioners are republicans (appointed by President Biden). The two wrote separate opinions ok’ing the agreement. And accessiBe signed it.

I wrote about the importance of hope in my 2025 Digital Accessibility Joy Plan. I think it is warranted here.

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How to File a comment about the FTC / accessiBe settlement

Here is the government website page where you can submit a comment about the accessiBe agreement. You can also upload files with your comments, and there is a reCaptcha checkbox to indicate you are not a robot.

You will be given an option to identify as an individual, an organization, or as anonymous. All comments, including anonymous ones, will be posted, so do not include any confidential information. If you do not choose anonymous, your comment will be posted with your name, state or province, and country.

The page where comments are posted is here. As of this writing 12 comments have been submitted and you can read them all.

At the top of this comment page there is a link to another page titled accessiBe; Analysis of Proposed Consent Order To Aid Public Comment. This will take you to a summary of the accessiBe order that you are commenting on. You can get back to the comment page by clicking the “comment” button at the top of the page.

What to say in your comment

Anyone can submit a comment – you do not have to live in the United States. Comments do not have to be formal or long, and you don’t have to write any magic words. Be truthful. You may want to share your thoughts about the importance of digital accessibility and harms caused by overlays.

You can even thank the FTC for investigating this important topic and issuing the order against accessiBe.

Here are some other things I think will be useful for the FTC to hear:

  • If you agree with the FTC’s order to fine accessiBe for making misrepresentations say so. (Some people who have already commented have said the fine was too low.) If you agree that the company should not misrepresent what an overlay can do, share that in the comment.
  • If you are a person with a disability who has experienced an accessiBe overlay on a website, you may want to share your experience. If you’ve encountered an overlay but don’t know what company provided it, general comments about overlays are useful too.
  • If you are a small business owner who purchased an accessiBe license, you may want to tell the FTC about your experience. According to the just-released Usablenet 2024 Year-End Report about ADA digital accessibility lawsuits, in 2024 more than one thousand companies with an accessibility widget on their website were sued for accessibility barriers. I think the FTC will value the small-business perspective.
  • If you are an accessibility professional with experience about how overlays work or their limitations, I think the FTC will appreciate hearing your thoughts.
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More resources about FTC’s case against accessiBe and links to articles on LFLegal mentioning the company

Updates to this article

June 6, 2025 Update

On April 22, 2025, the Federal Trade Commission put out a press release titled “FTC Approves Final Order Requiring accessiBe to pay $1 Million.” The first paragraph explains that:

AccessiBe claimed the plug-in accessWidget can make any website compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The order prohibits accessiBe from making misleading claims and requires the company to pay $1 million.Federal Trade Commission April 22, 2025 announcement

The final order in this case was issued on April 21. You can read the 10 page order here.

Hundreds of companies using overlays were sued in the past year in web accessibility lawsuits. In May 2025 alone UsableNet reports that “119 Defendants were sued while using a 3rd party accessibility related control (widget).”

Need more information? Check out the Overlay Factsheet

After this FTC final order against accessiBe there should be no more excuses. If you care about accessibility and disability inclusion in tech don’t use an overlay.

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February 2, 2025 Update

Here is the comment that Lainey Feingold submitted to encourage the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to approve the agreement with AccessiBe described in this article. The public can file comments on this government web page through February 5th. The article above explains how to file a comment and what you might want to say in your comment. You can read all the filed comments here. (Note it may take a day or two for comments to appear on this web page.)

Lainey Feingold’s comment to the FTC about AccessiBe Consent Order

I am a lawyer who, since 1995, has devoted much of my practice to representing blind people seeking full participation in the digital world. Instead of filing lawsuits, I have worked collaboratively with some of the largest companies in the United States to safeguard the rights of disabled people who need to access websites, mobile apps, and other technology as creators, consumers, and citizens.

I have also represented local and national blind organizations regarding the importance of digital access and ways to make technology more accessible. I frequently give public and private talks to U.S. companies seeking information on how to best make products and services available to everyone.

I write to emphasize the importance of the Commission’s work uncovering the deception and wrongful practices AccessiBe has been using for years and urge the Commission to formally approve this Agreement and Consent Order.

I have written and spoken about the harms of overlays since 2020. I have spoken with and heard from countless blind people who have been blocked from accessing websites using overlays, including overlays sold and licensed by AccessiBe.

These blind people include students, university technologists, public librarians, and employees of some of the largest companies in the United States. As the Commission found, AccessiBe’s products do not, as the company claims, make websites fully accessible to people with disabilities. Consequently, the harm AccessiBe causes goes beyond its deception to its customers.

By selling the false promise that a business need only use its faulty product, the US and foreign Respondents prevent American businesses from properly remediating their websites—and the entire disabled community suffers as a result. Small businesses across the United States have been harmed by false statements about Respondent’s products. These businesses have spent money that doesn’t fix the problem the product claims to solve and have been sued despite using that product to avoid a lawsuit.

There is simply no place for false advertising in a free market economy.

Moreover, AccessiBe’s products actually interfere with tools that blind people and others already use to access the internet. The technology sector deserves truthful advertising and the Commission’s carefully crafted Consent Order and Agreement serves that interest.

I respectfully urge final approval of the consent order to which AccessiBe already agreed and that was unanimously approved by the full Commission.Lainey Feingold’s comment to the FTC in the case against AccessiBe

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