What is it called when a spammer sends you an email by your own address?

Nathan P: What is it called when a spammer sends you an email by your own address?
I just got an email from some sort of medicine company advertising stuff like Viagra and they sent it to me by my own address. I’m sending it to the FTC and I want to know what its called.

Answers and Views:

Answer by LoneStar
It’s called “spoofing”.

Spoofing is the “forgery” of an address, to hide the identity of the sender, and is usually done by an Automatic Spamming system, that blindly and randomly, runs through addresses in a sequence.
It’s not actually coming from or thru your account. (see in your sent folder)
One type that’s called “Self Spamming”–(go figure)–appears to be coming “from” and going “to” the same address.

Anti-spam experts say—-There’s nothing you can do, except delete them (unopened of course). They are a nuisance, but harmless (as long as you don’t click on a link in them)—-and “usually” don’t last long.
If you spam them–you’d only be spamming your own address.