If someone comes to your house, and installs a gas appliance - you are happy that they have followed (a mandated) standard - Generally they will need to be licensed to do this - the license demonstrates that they have an understanding of the knowledge and application of the standard.

With a website, there is unfortunately no obligation to do the same, except in one instance - to provide accessibility. Most countries / states have strict laws governing disabled persons - things like wheelchair see more access, disabled toilets, etc. The same actually applies to web sites as well, failure to comply is seen as a form of discrimination. There is actually a precedent in law with Maguire vs. SOCOG where SOCOG was fined $20,000 for non-compliance to accessibility provisions.

Maybe we can get a class action together against Dolphin, I'm sure the fines would be much higher - SOCOG was only one website - Dolphin is used on many many more. In this respect alone Boonex have an obligation to follow web standards - let alone for legal (accessibility) reasons. Ironically SOCOG - the "Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games." is in the same legal jurisdiction as Boonex - so the precedent directly applies.

So from web coders, I would expect more support for web standards, as, in part, it is a legal obligation. Web standards are not an idealist value, it's something we should all be pushing forwards

/DM