> Spam is random email from someone you have not had contact with before firing messages to every address they can find anywhere on the web, the dark web, etc.

> Or if you ask not to be added to a mailing list and are added anyway.*

> Spam is not email from legitimate companies with valid contact details that have an opt out that you forgot to click when you signed up with them.

There's a HUGE grey area between the random unsolicited emails for scams and legitimate business partners where I forgot to check the opt out. I get almost none of the first (spam filters are pretty good at keeping Nigerian princes from getting help to access their money), and also almost none of the last (because I'm hypervigilant about opting out of email and cookies and all that trash), so all the spam I get is from "asked not to be added but added anyways".

Most of those are coming from Mailchimp and similar services. I'm sure that if I could take the senders to court and disentangle their web of parent companies that had my email in the web form for 10 seconds before I opted out and they sold it to each of their 20 daughter companies and partner organizations, and then I received the first "legitimate marketing email" (LOL! LMFAO!) and unsubscribed from that (which will take effect in 20 business days) so now I'm only subscribed to 19 new mailing lists from that company and also the dozen other organizations they're a part of, until they pivot to a new marketing agency which - oopsie! - forgot about my opt-out request.

That's Mailchimp's business model and the way that the entire "legitimate marketing" economy works, but I still consider it spam.