Webmaster intuition about this industry can be fairly reliable once they have been in the business a few years and seen many programs through good and bad times.
Auditing, however, is all together different. It is the only way to get some sort of tangible evidence that supports or refutes our intuitive beliefs. Auditing can exposing loopholes and problems with player tracking, whether accidental or deliberate. It can reveal weaknesses in the player experience, such as software installations, payment processing, and customer service. Auditing is an ongoing process, though.
A bad audit may not mean a program is dishonest. Honest programs can have issues which may not reflect their integrity whatsoever. Likewise, a good audit may not mean a program is clean. There are many different ways a dishonest program can attempt to divert monies away from webmasters, and it’s only be continually testing programs that we will eventually catch them… and we will.
Many program understand the importance of APCW membership. Some others, for whatever reasons, have chosen not to support our efforts and become members. Individual webmasters would really need to ask these non-members programs why they have chosen not to participate with us, especially given the track record the APCW has had over our three year history.