| Sometimes these requirements aren't as ridiculous as they sound. Some websites are subject to legislation* that requires real people to be available to assist. So if they use local employees to provide assistance, the website ends up being shut down outside of business hours. This isn't a US bank, but if you see a US government site do this for example, that's usually why. (* an incidental "benefit" of legislation like this is regulatory capture. It doesn't matter if some code mill like Accenture is the worst technical choice, they already have experience providing warm bodies for the phone line. It raises the bar for getting contracts incredibly high since they're treated as a package deal) - Edit response because I'm being rate limited... It's all rooted in Section 508: https://www.section508.gov/manage/laws-and-policies/ > Under Section 508, agencies must give disabled employees and members of the public access to information comparable to the access available to others. Each state has their own extensions and guidance too: https://www.section508.gov/manage/laws-and-policies/state/ And in combination with those state amendments sometimes "access to information comparable to the access available to others" ends up being translated into needing someone to be accessible at all hours that the site is operated. One thing to remember is that behemoths like Accenture and co also get to tip the scale. The law is vague enough that maybe in theory you could argue that you don't need a live human to meet the requirement... that won't stop incumbents for putting proposals that make it the defacto approach. |
Do you have any examples that of US legislation that requires being able to reach a local employee? I can barely get state government departments to respond to me, and there are multiple states I have called during normal business hours that flat out say “we are too busy today, call tomorrow”.
The idea of a government in the US legislating access to a government employee is laughable, based on my experiences.