Originally Posted by Gaybucks

Perhaps it's unrealistic, but one approach might be a sort of "best practices" group. Get a handful of sponsor programs to agree to take proactive steps to fight this sort of thing (as well as other sleazy practices that affect affiliates and members), and those sponsors are recognized as part of a "best practices" group. Then, affiliates who wish to can show their support by sending more traffic to the sponsors that are part of the best practices.

Affiliates could do the same thing and encourage sponsors to provide perks for affiliates that agree to adhere to best practices.

It wouldn't be mandatory of course, but it gets around the problem of not being able to get cooperation from people in the industry, by creating a self-selecting group that *wants* to work together honestly to fight these sort of underhanded behaviors.