To me – The term SPAM applied to websites is like “the war on drugs.” It’s a campaign without specific or measurable objectives. I don’t mean on the surface, I mean down deep in the implementation. Therefore, the type of escalation and definition expansion that you have observed is simply inevitable.

In my opinion, the ISSUE is very real. But the label is completely wrong. SPAM is a term that has a clear definition, and it’s related to email. To generalize broadly to any website you may not like is really dangerous.

I like your definition of “unsolicited and out of context.” But by that definition posters pasted on bus-stop walls or in the Men’s room are SPAM. People leaving little pamphlets on my car windshield while I’m in the supermarket is SPAM. But it’s not. It something else.

I think what people really mean by the miss-used term web spam is “overly promoted crappy websites that I don’t like.”