EULAlyzer 1.0 Released - Analyze license agreements for interesting words/phrases!

[javacool]

EULAlyzer 1.0 Released!

Analyze license agreements for interesting words and phrases!

End user license agreements (EULAs) are the bane of most computer users. No one wants to read through pages and pages of boring text, and many people skip reading them altogether. But it can be dangerous not to read license agreements - you might miss important information about software or bundled components, plus you have no idea what you could be agreeing to.

But now there's a way of making that much easier.

EULAlyzer - Making it all easy!

EULAlyzer can analyze license agreements in seconds, and provide a detailed listing of potentially interesting words and phrases. Discover if the software you're about to install displays pop-up ads, transmits personally identifiable information, uses unique identifiers to track you, or much much more.

The Benefits:
-Discover potentially hidden behavior about the software you're going to install
-Pick up on things you missed when reading license agreements
-Keep a saved database of the license agreements you view
-Instant results - super-fast analysis in just a second

EULAlyzer Personal is free for personal and educational use.

More information and download: http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/eulalyzer.html

Enjoy!

-Javacool

P.S. Want active, automatic protection? Help support the development of this program, and check out EULAlyzer Pro!

[Matt_Smi]

This is a cool program, I tried it out seems to work well, although I am trying to find a somewhat shady program to test it out with. I remember a little while back a member here pitched the idea for a program like this, cool to actually see it out now. Good Job!

[nicM]

The idea of such a soft is great ! especially for non/few-english speaking users - always annoying to read theses endless sentences.

Thanks, will give it a try

siljaline kindly posted news of this at GRC. The thread starts here if anyone's interested :-

From: siljaline <siljaline@cgi.bin>
Subject: Javacool Software "EULAlyzer"
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 00:55:16 -0400
Message-ID: <dg5m39$jqj$1@news.grc.com>
Xref: news.grc.com grc.news.latestversions:15166
X-Url: http://www.GRC.com/groups/news.latestversions:15166

Of course it's a brilliant tool in many ways. But as I haven't seen any comments here at the official forum about the potential drawbacks, I thought I'd copy across my GRC post for consideration :-

http://www.GRC.com/groups/news.latestversions:15209

=======================================
poo0gimmal said in:<news:dg5psb$m5u$1@news.grc.com>:
> siljaline wrote:
>> http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/eulalyzer.html
>> <quote>
>> [...]
>> You should always read license agreements before agreeing to them.
>> But now there's a way of making that much easier.
>>
>> EULAlyzer - Making it all easy
>>
>> EULAlyzer can analyze license agreements in seconds, and provide
>> a detailed listing of potentially interesting words and phrases.
>> Discover if the software you're about to install displays pop-up
>> ads, transmits personally identifiable information, uses unique
>> identifiers to track you, or much much more.
>> </quote>
>
> I eulalyzerized the eulalyzer eula... very interesting! install
> seemed painless. I guess we need some lawyer to analyze the
> output to advise if eulalyzer is finding legally significant
> stuff. does not really offer legal opinion, but finds phrases and
> then rates the eula in one of several catagories. more than I
> usually did in the past with eula's... but I know some folks here
> read them painstakingly.

IANAL, but I eulalyzerized the eulalyzer EULA too (presented, btw,
in a "small windows that require lots of scrolling", without any
means to print or copy'n'paste the text elsewhere! ), and it
illustrates my main concern about this brilliant but potentially
dangerous tool: that of creating a false sense of security.

Its practical purpose, and more-or-less-stated intent (I've padded
poo's quote above to highlight that), is that people need only read
the bits flagged as "potentially interesting". Which is fine
provided it *always* flags the "potentially interesting" bits, but
dangerous if it doesn't, because many people might be even less
inclined to read the whole thing, and therefore miss the bad bits,
than without the tool. Especially when it's popularity extends
beyond people like us, who are interested/horrified in/by such
things.

To illustrate, then: these seem to me to be by far the most
"potentially interesting" parts of it's own EULA :-

,------------ [quote]
The SOFTWARE PACKAGE includes a function which enables you, at your
sole option, to submit text to our EULA Research Center. If you
choose to submit text to the EULA Research Center through the
SOFTWARE PACKAGE, you are not required to, and you should not,
submit any personal, confidential or any other sensitive
information. Javacool Software LLC shall not be responsible or
liable for any such information submitted to it and we will not be
responsible or liable for protecting the privacy or security of any
information submitted to us, although we may attempt to purge such
information, at our sole discretion, if and when discovered.

All information you elect to submit to us is at your own risk. ANY
COMMUNICATION OF MATERIAL YOU TRANSMIT TO US THROUGH THE
SOFTWARE PACKAGE INCLUDING ANY DATA, QUESTIONS, COMMENTS,
SUGGESTIONS OR THE LIKE IS, AND WILL BE TREATED AS, NON-
CONFIDENTIAL AND NON-PROPRIETARY.
We may use anything you transmit or post for any
purpose, including, but not limited to, reproduction, disclosure,
transmission, publication, broadcast and posting. Furthermore, we
reserve the right to use any ideas, concepts, know-how, or
techniques contained in any communication you send through the
SOFTWARE PACKAGE for any purpose whatsoever, including, but not
limited to, developing, manufacturing, and marketing products using
such information without incurring any obligation whatsoever to you,
and by sending such communication, you waive all your rights
thereto. You are responsible in full for the content and accuracy
of all information that you send to us and for ensuring that the
rights of third parties are not prejudiced.
'-------- [end quote]

Look at that lot! Reference to transmission of personally
identifiable/sensitive information; privacy/security/retention of
same; treatment of any/all information as non-confidential; use of
such information in any way they like, including republishing and
*marketing*; waiver of all rights.

Wow. Now of course *we* know it's all above board, mostly in the
negative, and indeed a necessary safeguard for them to be able to
offer such a facility. But it sure is "potentially interesting". If
KaZaA or some other scumbags were saying that, we'd want it flagged
for closer scrutiny, right?

But EULAlyzer doesn't flag *any* of that lot.

I changed the text to make it even 'worse', as below [changes
*highlighted* here for clarity], and re-scanned it :-

,------------ [quote]
The SOFTWARE PACKAGE includes a function which enables you, at *our*
sole option, to submit text to our EULA Research Center. If *we*
choose to submit text to the EULA Research Center through the
SOFTWARE PACKAGE, you *are required* to, and you *should*, submit
personal, confidential or any other sensitive information. Javacool
Software LLC shall not be responsible or liable for any such
information submitted to it and we will not be responsible or liable
for protecting the privacy or security of any information submitted
to us, and we *will not attempt to purge such information when
discovered*.

All information you elect to submit to us is at your own risk. ANY
COMMUNICATION OF MATERIAL YOU TRANSMIT TO US THROUGH THE
SOFTWARE PACKAGE INCLUDING ANY DATA, QUESTIONS, COMMENTS,
SUGGESTIONS OR THE LIKE IS, AND WILL BE TREATED AS, NON-
CONFIDENTIAL AND NON-PROPRIETARY.
We may use anything you transmit or post,
*including personal, confidential or any other sensitive
information*, for any purpose, including, but not limited to,
reproduction, disclosure, transmission, publication, broadcast and
posting.
'-------- [end quote]

EULAlyzer still doesn't flag anything. If a bad actor included the
above text, then an EULAlyzer user (who didn't then go on to read
the whole EULa regardless) would get a false sense of
security/privacy, would they not?

Of course it will improve over time, and as feedback is received.
And probably it will do much more good than bad, in aggregate.

But still, I have significant misgivings about the concept
--

Milly
=======================================

[nadirah]

Nice piece of software javacool! I'm gonna try it out myself.