X10 Pop-Under Screen Spammers Ordered To Pay $10 Million

I'm not sure if this is good or bad. Pop-under ads are screen spam, plain and simple. They're hated by nearly all Internet users. That two pop-under screen spam pioneers are embattled in a costly legal dispute sounds like justice to me.

And the fact that some news websites continue to allow such spammy pop-under ads to be served to their readers shows just how low some companies will go to make a buck. It's cowardly advertising, and people hate it.

In contrast, you'll never see pop-unders hiding beneath this website.

• If the court ruling holds up, the three Vanderhook brothers stand to become wealthy Internet entrepreneurs.
• But they wonder if they'll recover the innocence they say they lost in the rough-and-tumble world of big business.
• Two weeks ago a Superior Court jury in Santa Ana ordered X-10 Wireless Technology of Seattle to pay the Vanderhooks $4.3 million in damages.
• X10 attorney Sean P. O'Connor would not comment on the damage award or possibility of an appeal.
• "When we found out they weren't paying that bill, we were beyond distraught," recalled Chris Vanderhook.
• "All of a sudden, it stops being a game when it's real money and real dollar figures and real employees depending on us for their jobs," said his brother Russell.