I was just reading this article about brand name bidding.

Now essentially Brand name bidding involves using PPC to bid on the Brand name and brand terms of a specific affiliate program, the premise behind this being that if an affiliate bids on a merhcants brand names the affiliates PPC ad will appear above and around the merchants  domain (in the organic search results) for the merchants keywords. As the merchant pays for the affiliates commission in this instance the merchant is paying commission for leads and sales that are already preselected as intending to go to the merchants sites, i.e. marketing what doesn’t need to be marketed. Because the brandnames are usually restricted to affiliate, ‘closed’ groups’ have formed by affiliate networks to allow the brand name terms to be bid on, really these are the only parties that gain from Brand name bidding, and in a round about way, this essentially amounts to ‘non-competition’ or monopolistic/oligarchic business practice, this very naturally takes advantage of the merchants business and really shows there is a gap in Merchant education that is being very openly and unethically taken advantage of, this will naturally bring affiliate marketing in to bad light and for networks, this will lead to many a pissed off affiliate.

I for one disagree with Brand name bidding closed groups. However, i do understand the need to protect a merchants brand name, and I think there are alternatives to having a closed group of affiliate mates exploiting this loop hole.