Depends on how you define "adware." According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adware, Microsoft at one point defined it as

Depends on how you define "adware." According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adware, Microsoft at one point defined it as "any software that installs itself on your system without your knowledge and displays advertisements when the user browses the Internet." I'm not sure what other term I could/should have used ¯\_(ツ)_/¯