Explanis - Know Before You Accept

Detect, read, and summarize Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy types of pages.

Explanis - know before you accept - helps users make sense of Terms of Service, Privacy Policies, and other documents of this kind without the legalese that so often slows decisions, hides important details, or leaves lingering doubts. In a world where sign-up flows nudge users to click “I agree” as quickly as possible, Explanis pauses the rush just long enough to provide clarity. With a single click, Explanis analyzes the page a user is viewing —or any URL the user pastes into the website— and produces a plain-English, structured summary that distills dense documents into the essential points. Instead of scrolling through walls of text, users receive a narrative overview that explains what data the service claims to collect, why that data is used, whether it may be shared or “sold,” how long the data may be kept, and which opt-out choices are available. The goal is simple: help users understand commitments and trade-offs before accepting terms, so decisions feel informed, confident, and aligned with personal preferences. When a user loads a page, the Explanis extension quietly scans the visible text for high-signal keywords such as “Terms and Conditions”, “Privacy Policy”, “Cookie Policy”, “User Agreement”, or similar. If a likely policy is detected, Explanis alerts the user in the popup and presents a Send for analysis button. Upon the user’s click, the extension collects the page’s content, strips away HTML tags and layout cruft, and submits the clean text to a Gen-AI provider via a secure API with pre-defined prompts crafted to summarize and extract key details (data collected, purposes, sharing/selling, retention, opt-outs, and potential fees). The results are returned to the extension and presented to users in a clear, structured view inside the popup. If anything goes wrong—network issues, protected pages, or non-standard formats—Explanis handles errors gracefully and displays helpful, user-friendly messages with suggested next steps. Explanis is designed for everyday web journeys. Users can quickly learn whether an app or service intends to track activity for targeted advertising, whether deletion rights exist, and how to exercise those rights. Parents researching new apps for a household can see at a glance whether location data, camera access, or children’s data may be collected, and whether special opt-outs are supported. Students registering for educational platforms can confirm whether content they upload may be reused for training or analytics. Professionals managing vendor risk can obtain a starting summary in minutes before escalating a deeper legal review. In each of these scenarios, Explanis gives users the same core advantage: time saved, risks surfaced, and next steps made obvious. Under the hood, Explanis focuses on the sections that matter most to users. When a page is submitted, Explanis first identifies whether the document appears to be a policy or terms page at all. If it is, the extension extracts a concise summary and then organizes details into a handful of dependable categories. A “Data Collected” section lists specific data types commonly mentioned in policies—such as email address, IP address, device identifiers, precise or approximate location, payment information, browsing activity, and interactions. Each item is paired with stated purposes in the policy—account creation, service delivery, fraud prevention, analytics, personalization, advertising, legal compliance—and, when the document provides it, high-level notes about storage or retention. A “Sharing and Selling” section highlights whether the policy claims to disclose data to service providers, analytics partners, advertising networks, affiliates, or other recipients, and whether a document uses the language of “selling” or “sharing” in the sense used by certain privacy regulations. Opt-out guidance is presented in practical terms. Explanis enumerates the control, the method, and the instructions—prioritizing steps that allow users to keep core service access while dialing down tracking or third-party use. If a document references a “Do Not Sell or Share” link, a cookie preferences center, a browser-level signal, or jurisdiction-specific rights (such as rights under laws in California, Virginia, Colorado, the European Union, or other regions), Explanis includes those references in the results and, where possible, associates them with specific steps that users can follow. When a site lists contact methods or dedicated privacy forms, Explanis includes those pointers too, enabling users to move from understanding to action. If a document mentions fees or charges that appear in terms, Explanis surfaces them so users can avoid surprises, especially for services that may charge termination fees, add-on fees, or usage-based surcharges that might otherwise be overlooked during a quick sign-up. Explanis is engineered to be helpful without being intrusive. The extension analyzes only the page a user submits, and results may be cached to speed up repeat checks of the same URL. The extension does not inject remote code, and it requests only minimal permissions needed to do its job—reading the current tab content only when a user explicitly asks it to analyze that page. For users who want a copy of the findings for records, team sharing, or future reference, Explanis can generate an email-ready, formatted report that summarizes the key points and includes reference links to the sections of the original document that informed the analysis. This optional feature helps users keep their own audit trail and compare changes over time as services update their policies. When documents explicitly state dates of effect or last update, Explanis records them so users can see whether the analysis corresponds to the current version and can make judgments about policy changes over time. Clarity is the priority at every step. Explanis aims to reduce ambiguity by paraphrasing claims into plain English while keeping close to the source text. When a document is explicit, the summary reflects that explicitness; when a document is vague, the summary flags the vagueness as a risk factor. If a policy allows broad or undefined purposes, if it mentions indefinite retention, if it references “partners” without naming them, or if it relies almost entirely on consent banners while burying actual controls in separate pages, Explanis draws attention to those patterns so users can decide whether they are acceptable. The goal is not to offer legal advice, but to surface the major themes that users typically care about—what is collected, why, who gets it, how long it is kept, and what controls exist—so users can act wisely. Explanis also recognizes that not every policy covers the same ground, and sometimes documents omit specifics that users might expect. When a page says little about retention or security measures, Explanis does not guess; instead, it marks the field as “not specified” and continues. If a policy mixes privacy information with marketing language, Explanis focuses on the operative sentences—where rights, obligations, or practices are actually described—so users are not distracted by general brand statements. If a document includes jurisdiction-specific sections that change rights or opt-outs, Explanis points them out and suggests where those sections might apply. If the content appears to be a human-readable summary that links to a longer, binding policy, Explanis calls that out so users can escalate to the full document before accepting terms or sharing sensitive data. Performance and usability also matter. Explanis runs quickly on typical pages, and it is designed to fail gracefully. If a page is unreachable, requires login, uses non-standard formats, or renders content in ways that resist reliable extraction, Explanis tells users that processing was not possible and offers a simple way to contact support, including an option to attach the URL and the time of the attempt. This transparency helps users understand when a limitation is due to site design, connectivity, or a missing permission, rather than leaving users to guess. When analysis succeeds, users see consistent sections and labeling across different sites, which makes comparisons easier—especially for users who evaluate multiple vendors, services, or apps in a single research session. Explanis also includes a clear disclosure that the summary is generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies or omissions. Users are reminded—both in the extension interface and within the summary view—that the analysis is an automated aid intended to highlight key points, not legal advice or a substitute for reading the original document. Users should verify important details in the source policy and, for high-stakes decisions, consult the full text or a qualified professional. Explanis is built for a wide audience. Casual users who primarily want to know whether advertising tracking is enabled can skim the summary and the opt-out steps. Power users who need detail can review sections to find the data types, purposes, and sharing statements that matter to them. Above all, Explanis is about restoring choice. Many services provide real value, and many policies strive to be clear; users simply benefit from a faster path to the information that influences consent. By presenting the essentials in a consistent format and highlighting meaningful opt-outs, Explanis encourages better habits: reading before agreeing, saving a copy of terms for future reference, and revisiting policies when they change. Over time, those habits help users select services that match their expectations and encourage providers to communicate more clearly. In practical terms, Explanis keeps operational friction low. The installation is quick, permissions are minimal, and the workflow is familiar—open the extension, analyze the current page, review the summary, and optionally email a formatted report. Explanis does not aim to replace legal review, is intended for routine, familiar practices. The extension’s consistency and clarity make it suitable both for one-off decisions and for repeated use when product and service providers update their policy documentation. For support and feedback, Explanis encourages users to share examples of pages that were especially helpful—or especially challenging—so the experience improves over time. The aim is a virtuous cycle: clearer summaries encourage better decisions; better decisions encourage clearer policies; clearer policies are easier to summarize. Explanis is a small tool built around a big idea: that users deserve to understand the terms that govern digital life. By helping users “know before they accept,” the extension turns long and complicated terms and policy text into practical knowledge and replaces guesswork with confidence.