1 more comment, this mailing list would be a useful too for me to communicate with other affiliate managers in the event that I have some problem affiliates as well. I am trying to do that at the moment but the threads are good but in this case I want all of my affiliate managers to know about it and take immediate action. I would say there is probably a need for some sort of opt-in list and I think it could be hosted either by CAP and GPWA but perhaps a more central role could be Affiliate Guard Dog.
Opt-in list is a very good suggestion.
Maybe adding some sort of affiliate warning section to the monthly “CAP affiliate manager newsletter” sent by Natalie would be a start? Having AGD involved makes a lot of sense too. Proactive aff companies could be awarded a seal, much like AGD’s.
Defining some sort of industry standard is probably far fetched; it’s ultimately the aff manager’s decision to give someone the boot, based on the evidence they gather and the harm that is being done to their or their affiliate partners’ businesses…But feeding (emails/newsletters/RSS) aff managers with adhoc/regular leads on potential content thieves/spammers/blackhatters could only help.