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I've used Amazon.com reviews to write papers for school. I skipped reading the assigned books. My grade results were a B+ or A on my papers. Its amazing how much information reviews give away about a book. They go into detail. They get passionate about their opinion. This has been the best time saver ever. Thank you Google.
You'll get caught that way.
It's less detectable if you search up essays in another language and translate them (but then again, half of Europe's delinquents do that).
Normal but not ethical. That's like cheating to win in a game, you haven't really won and you didn't really get those grades, Amazon did.
I don't know what level of education you've reached, but I heard recently that in Australia at university level this is so common essays and assignments are run through a computerised plagiarism regime to weed out the cheaters.
Ethical or not? Why so black/white? I'm not plagiarizing anything. If I need cited sources, I find legit ones to use. The reviews are a time saver! Ethical? College isn't ethical. Its a super-inflated self-serving industry. Cheating, in what way? Everything subjective is relative. What one interprets as cheating is perfectly legal, depending on the interpretation of the situation, rules, and whatever else. It is all case by case.
Yes, in the USA, anti-plagiarism software is in use. How often? I don't know. What defines plagiarism anyways? Perhaps a direct rip off qualifies as plagiarism. Safely start your paper with I agree with "______". Wrap all the text in quotes, lol! Actually, as filler, I've done that. But, if a human wrote or thought something, I can bet that its not an idea all too original in the first place. Humans in college will rehash the same ideas decade after decade.
If plagiarism is so bad, J.K. Rowling might need to go into deep, dark hiding for Harry Potter. She got sued once, nothing happened. Ever heard of The Worst Witch? They're so similar. How about the Hunger Games series? That's a ripoff of Battle Royale. There's two cases of real world plagiarism.