How Real Is the Threat? A By-the-Numbers Risk Assessment

Not every "compliance" warning is a lawsuit waiting to happen. Here is each major risk sorted into what it actually is — a real lawsuit, a contested theory, or a search-visibility problem — with the numbers.

Real lawsuits, filed in volume

• ADA web accessibility: 5,000+ digital accessibility suits in 2025; 3,117 federal website filings (+27% YoY). NY and CA dominate; ~70% hit e-commerce, ~21% food/service. Typical resolution $5,000–$25,000 plus remediation. Repeat defendants ~46% of federal cases.
• Copyright / image demands: tens of thousands of Getty/PicRights letters a year, $750–$5,000 per image initial ask, escalating toward the $150,000 statutory ceiling for a registered work.

Real statutes, contested application

• CIPA "website wiretapping": anchored to $5,000 per violation, but in 2025 California courts openly split — some dismissed claims requiring data be "read in transit," others let TikTok/Bing-pixel claims survive. A federal judge called the statute a "total mess." Reform (SB 690) failed in 2025. Strong demand-letter leverage, uncertain trial outcome — which is why they settle.
• TCPA (marketing texts/calls): $500 per message, up to $1,500 if willful. Not contested — a well-established class-action engine.

Not a lawsuit — a Google-visibility problem

• Duplicate / scraped content: Google has no "duplicate content penalty," but its September 2025 spam update demoted mass-produced and near-identical pages, and scrapers can outrank an original that hasn't proven provenance. Harm is lost traffic, not court.
• Security headers / TLS gaps: rarely sued over directly, but after an incident they read as negligence to regulators and cyber-insurers.

Sources

• UsableNet 2025 reports
• National Law Review (TCPA)
• Fisher Phillips, Holland & Knight, Mayer Brown (CIPA 2025)
• Search Engine Journal / Google (duplicate content)