Anti-competitive behavior exhibited by overlay vendors

Interference with web accessibility testing tools
Among the most notable anti-competitive behaviors exhibited by overlays is their interference with the operation of testing tools. WAVE, by WebAIM, is one of the most popular web accessibility testing tools in the market and is available via a few delivery methods including a browser extension or a web service.

Using the web service, a user needs only to enter the URL they want tested into the form on wave.webaim.org/. Upon doing so, the WAVE service will assess the code on the URL that was submitted and display the results of its automated assessment.

As shown in the image example below, overly product UserWay interferes with WAVE, displaying a brightly colored message declaring "Scan Error. The Wave online scanner is unable to accurately parse the accessibility remediations on this page". This warning message is generated by UserWay, not WAVE, and is false. The placement, appearance, and wording of this message is likely intended to erode customer's trust in the WAVE product.

Although the above message makes the recommendation to "Use the Wave Browser Extension…", UserWay interferes with that tool as well. The example images below show the homepage from data.unicef.org/ on November 4, 2021, at 4:09 PM US Central Time. The first picture shows the default state of the page before the WAVE testing tool has been activated. Pay particular attention to the white text on blue background on the right side of the center of the page. This color combination fails WCAG standards for color contrast requirements.

When the WAVE tool is activated, UserWay alters the page in a way that interferes with WAVE's ability to accurately test the page. UserWay injects code onto the page that causes the white-on-blue text to be white text on a black background, as shown in the figure below. This has the effect of:

Tricking the UserWay customer into believing that the UserWay product is fixing things when, in its non-interfering behavior it isn't
Interfering with the effectiveness and accuracy of another product
(As a result of #2) convincing the UserWay customer that they do not need to take any further action on accessibility efforts.

In 2020, Adrian Roselli documented apparent attempts by accessiBe to interfere with WAVE as well.[1] Users of the WAVE tool had reported noticing anomalous behavior on sites which use the accessiBe product including anecdotal evidence that sites containing accessiBe would report no errors when obvious errors are present. As a result, the makers of WAVE needed to add a message within their product which states "The 3rd party accessiBe integration on this page may temporarily modify content when WAVE is activated resulting in interference with WAVE's detection and of and accuracy identifying accessibility and compliance issues"

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