Google to ban essay writing adverts

Students faced with actually-doing-some-work crisis

23 May 2007 10:36 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

In a move that will no doubt be criticised as seeing Google taking the moral high-ground, the search engine giant has decide to ban all essay-writing service advertisements from its search result pages.

Google has written to all advertisers that fall into this category warning them that as of June this year they will no longer be prepared to take their money.

A Google spokesperson commented to a national newspaper:
"Google is committed to maintaining high standards for the advertising we accept".

Many of the essay-writing firms that advertise on Google offer a legitimate service, with heavy disclaimers about what constitutes plagiarism – it's obviously what their customers then do with the product that becomes problematic.

One firm has been quoted as saying that they get up to 80% of their business through Google advertising channels and are very angry at this sudden change in policy.

The BBC reports that Google is acting in response to pressure and protest from universities, who claim that the written-to-order essays and dissertations are devaluing higher education qualifications with an estimated 12,000 bogus pieces of work turned in each academic year.

Other areas that are currently banned from advertising via Google are more obvious such as guns, drugs, fake IDs and prostitution.

Full tags

Biz, Google