united-states money-service
Would a user expose themselves to legal jeopardy if they were paid to write a question or an answer for someone else?
<h1>Background</h1>

<p>After reading through several policies for Stack Exchange, I could not find anything that explicitly forbids or bans a user from writing a question or answer on behalf of someone else in exchange for money.  That is, I could not find anything that states someone who is paid to log in as another user and write a specific answer, or question for them.  However, given that I have seen policies against Real World Training in websites such as <a href="https://runescape.fandom.com/wiki/Real-world_trading" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Runescape</a> and <a href="https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20753445920" rel="nofollow noreferrer">World of Warcraft</a>, I was curious if something similar existed for Stack Exchange and its sister sites.</p>

<h1>Question</h1>

<p>Would payment in exchange for writing another user's question or answer potentially violate the legal policies of a Stack Exchange?</p>

<p>This would not be "legal jeopardy" per-se, really the only remedy that Stack Exchange would have in a case like this would be to ban both accounts. It would be different if you caused SE some kind of monetary/reputation damages to the site itself. </p>

<p>From SE's <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/acceptable-use-policy">Acceptable Use Policy</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p><strong>Identity Theft and Privacy.</strong> Users that misleadingly appropriate the identity of another person are not permitted. </p>
</blockquote>

<p>It seems your described scheme would violate that term. </p>

<p>But this isn't a <em>legal problem</em>, just an operational one. You aren't violating any law (unless there are local laws against this) by paying somebody to "be you" on SE. The most that this would earn you and your cohort would be a ban and probably removal of the contributions.</p>
