One of the fiercest critics of the perceived decline of academic standards, the Daily Mail , can always be relied on to expose student cheating. So when a study on the proliferation of student "ghost-writing" services on the web was reported in The Times Higher last week, and a project on students buying and selling essays on internet auction site eBay was released, some experts searched the Mail website. It was quite a shock to find that a search for the word "essay" revealed no fewer than four sponsored links to web services selling essays to students.