Comment Abused like Google (Score 1) 157
This program could be abused just like some websites manage to fool Google's PageRank algorithm.
People say E-Rater checks for proper grammar and spellings, the pages in Google's results also have proper grammar and all. The actual content is what is not wanted. If someone manages to write a completely unrelated essay.. but complete with proper spellings and grammar, he might be able to fool the software.
A better approach would be a software that would require you to input the essay topic for which it would then scourge the internet for related keywords and all. Something just like Siri does. AND THEN checks you essay for proper content + grammar + spellings. If any weird exceptions are encountered, they are flagged for manual checking.
This should give a full-proof E-Rater.