Pretty much everyone agrees that the advertising model of internet support is, and will be, a failure. Until we get to the point that the internet is our 500 channel television that we passively watch, advertising will not work as a primary means of support for the overwhelming majority of web content. Several people have suggested that advertising could work if the ads were more aligned with the sites themselves (i.e. domain specific) however to me that is delusional thinking to avoid reality as domain specific ad supported sites are falling by the wayside as well.
However in the meantime the new technique that a lot of sites are trying is to make ads more "in your face". An internet advertising consortium recently decided that bigger, more pronounced ads are the solution and many sites are busy incorporating them. Sites like CNet had already moved to a giganto style of ad. Other sites have taken the approach of making the ads popup in a separate window. Then there is the dirtiest of all dirty tactics: The PC co-opting hidden window that intentionally goes against the wishes of the PC's owner and rewards the closing of one ad popup with the creation of another (after putting in delays to make it more difficult to know which web page caused the ads in the first place). One such site where you can see this in effect is at http://www.dmusic.com (dmusic is merely an example as this new technique has been popping up, pardon the pun, all over the place) in certain areas such as the news sections. I haven't made that a link because I don't want anyone supporting this sort of heavy-handed, possibly borderline illegal, approach to advertising.
This advertising technique is based around intentionally ignoring the users desires and is absolutely no different than a trojan horse or Denial of Service style attack. To me this is a clear violation of several laws related to the unauthorized use of computer resources (and I'm not even considering some of the interesting ActiveX controls it occasionally tries to push on the user), but then again IANAL so take that as the words of someone very frustrated seeing this abuse destroying the net. If you run an advertisement driven site and you think this is a fair tactic, realize that many of us will never return to your site again, and secondly anything advertised in these popups is a purveyor of dirt in my mind and I will despise you and your questionable products until the end of time. I would be a very happy person if I heard the news pronounce that some new regulations were being passed, or that current regulations were being enforced and some culprits were being punished.
Technical Info: The trick in question is that the pages rely on the client browser's scripting. Many of us leave scripting on because a lot of genuinely useful sites such as new vehicle customization, etc., rely on it (however I'm once again going to completely disable scripting and will add sites that are actually useful to the Trusted Sites category when necessary). This script is added on culprit pages to run once the onUnload event is called in the browser, at which point it creates a 1x1 window at the desktop location of 10,000x10,000 (unless you have a really nice monitor that location is far off your screen and in a place where they know you can't see it : It is intentionally made to be difficult to stop). Now this "patent pending" worthy technology has put in place a very scary copyright in the source of the page that is loaded, so I'm not going to repeat any of the code lest the lawyers (or legal talking type guys with scary cease and desist legaltype letters) come running, however let me just say that you can do a get (NOT with a scripting enabled browser) of http://nitrous.exitfuel.com/?BPROGRAM=EF1&LINKIN=spyed&REF=blap and you'll see the secret, highly protected code (with comments and all). Let me give this company a little hint: You haven't invented anything - You've merely done something so scummy that no one else dared. Congratulations on breaking new ground in the field of dirtbaggery.
Personally I think this sort of PC hijacking should be actionable. Then again I also think that when I uninstall a product such as an internet phone application that snuck in my computer alongside another application, if it then adds itself in my Internet Explorer menu bar, on my desktop, and in my start menu that again is intentionally going against the specific request I have made of it (which was that it get lost). There is no doubt that there is a very large need for some laws relating to co-opting people's PCs. Why is it that the law will throw a macro virus writer in jail for using people's computers in a way that they didn't want, yet these scumbags can get away with it?