Unwanted universal access icon appears in sys-tray, cannot be removed

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Open gnome-keyboard-properties, select tab Accessibility and deselect "Accessibility features can be toggled with keyboard shortcuts". Then the icon should disappear.

The solution that Benjamin Drung posted will work if you toggle it by selecting it, clicking OK and then going back and deselecting it, and then clicking OK again.

i had the same problem. tried the solution suggested by benjamin and jeb and it worked. thanks!

This issue popped up for me on a recent update to Karmic Koala (over a year later). I am slightly frustrated that this kind of thing isn't just 'fixed' given the fact that this checkbox is responsible for the universal access icon in the notification panel is less than obvious and a poor user experience when you can't figure out how to remove it without looking up the answer on launchpad/forums. Is there a proper process to follow for this type of usability 'bug'?

Running an up to date install of Karmic and I just, out of the blue, experienced this problem... to the next degree. I had TWO of the UAP icons in my sys-tray. The keyboard trick took away one but I am left with another one just sitting there. Left click brings up UAP, right click does nothing.

I had the same problem, two UAP icons in the sys-tray. A reboot cleared one of them out, and the above instructions took care of the second.