The California fine print.
California has its own rules about who can sue over a website and what a site has to tell the people who use it. Here are 5 questions owners ask about them, answered in plain words with the statute or ruling linked. The rest of our answers are on the questions page.
This is general information, not legal advice. If a demand letter or a lawsuit arrives, talk to a California lawyer before you reply to it.
Updated
Does my business website need to be ADA compliant in California, and can I be sued?
Yes, you can be sued, and California makes it expensive. The Unruh Civil Rights Act sets damages at $4,000 minimum per violation, plus attorney fees. Businesses with a storefront carry the most risk. For online-only businesses the claim got narrower in 2022, when Martinez v. Cot'n Wash held that a website alone isn't a public accommodation under the ADA. Every site we build targets WCAG 2.1 AA, tested with a keyboard and a screen reader.
Will an accessibility widget or overlay protect me from a lawsuit?
No. An overlay is a script that tries to patch a page as it loads, and the code underneath stays as broken as it was. In 2025 the FTC ordered accessiBe to pay $1 million for claiming its widget could make any website compliant with WCAG. The fix that holds up lives in the code itself, which is where every site we build targets WCAG 2.1 AA.
How much does it cost to make my website ADA compliant?
On a site we build, nothing extra: every build targets WCAG 2.1 AA and gets tested with a keyboard and a screen reader. Auditing or fixing a site someone else built is $125 an hour, since the work depends on how that site was made. No California law sets a WCAG level for private businesses (AB 1757 died in 2024), and WCAG 2.1 AA is the level the Justice Department adopted for state and local government sites.
Are chat widgets and ad pixels a legal risk for my website in California?
Yes, they can be. Plaintiffs have sued sites under the wiretap section of California's Invasion of Privacy Act, Penal Code section 631, over tools that pass what visitors type or click to another company, like chat widgets and ad pixels. SB 690 would end private suits that treat website trackers as "pen registers," and would leave section 631 alone. As of September 29, 2026 it has passed the Legislature and awaits the governor's decision, due September 30.