Sounds to me more, as if you have some Spyware / Junkware or PuPs on your System, which try to contact the Internet in background.
Since some of this sites /urs might be blacklisted from Spybot, this connections cannot be resolved, but because the Adware trys again and again, this ends up in a loop.
As you removed the entrys in the Hostfile, the connections could be resolved again and the loop did end.
However, i would recommend a full Scan with Spybot to remove unwanted entrys.
