multi accounting in online poker

In the not so well policed world of online poker, there are several issues that loom on the seedy side of things. Recently, the most predominant of these issues is multi-accounting. Multi accounting is used to describe the practice of entering multiple accounts (screen names) into the same online poker tournament. The sole purpose of multi-accounting is to create an advantage by offering one player multiple chances to advance to the later stages of a poker tournament where the significant money is.
The term was first widely used after high profile online players JJprodigy and ZeeJustin were banned by multiple online poker sites for the practice.
It should be noted that playing on an account other than your own is not in it self multi-accounting so long as it's the only account being used in the tournament or cash game. The issue becomes when a player with multiple accounts in one tournament busts, then picks up with the other screen name.
The most unfortunate thing about this situation is that there is really no way to pre-empt multi accounting. It is always going to be to late by the time it is realized. Too many players have friends and family who also play poker for sites to prevent people from being able to access other legitimate accounts. There is no real way to tell who is and who isn’t playing the accounts, so the rules against it are to a certain extent unenforceable. Hopefully, with more and more people getting caught for multi accounting violations, the extent to which it happens will see a decline.