Buying essays online now a criminal offence

Buying essays online now a criminal offence
The government has told major credit card companies they must stop taking payments for essay-cheating website, which have now been criminalised in an effort to protect academic standards. Paypal has already agreed to refuse transactions involving so-called ‘essay mills’.
The new legislation makes it illegal for companies to provide, arrange or advertise such services for financial gain in England. Skills minister Alex Burghart has also written to internet service providers telling them not to host such companies. He stressed students have a responsibility not to cheat and warned them that if they used such services they risked being found out in their professional lives.
The outlawing of essay mills was welcomed by Turnitin, an online plagiarism detection service.
“With an estimated one in seven students falling prey to essay mills, we wholeheartedly back the government’s decision to take action on what is a growing problem in the UK,” said Aaron Yaverski, Turnitin regional VP for Europe.
“Essay mills use clever marketing techniques to deliberately target students who may be feeling anxious or vulnerable. We’ve seen essay mills sponsor articles to appear as reliable news in attempts to assure that their practices are not unethical.”
Yaverski also backed the move to criminalise the service provider, rather than the user.
“In many cases, academic misconduct is unintentional—a skills and knowledge gap,” he added. “Students may be unaware that using an essay mill is wrong, particularly when the companies behind them use such persuasive and manipulative marketing techniques.”