Sure I have seen some spam with Flash. Here is a company that allows you to make it, send it, and then track it. http://www.impactbuilderpro.com

They say web sites, but really it is a self contained splash page that is sent via email.

Posted by: Keith Henning on October 12, 2002 10:43 PM

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I've got Outlook Express set to the Restricted security zone, and have that zone set to disable pretty much everything (Active Scripting, ActiveX, Java), to avoid embedded Flash/video and annoying/malicious scripting in emails.
I've had a few blank spam emails recently, they probably contained Flash.

Posted by: Matt Round on October 13, 2002 01:02 PM

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To accompany Matt's point above. Major web-based email client-types (hotmail, yahoo, etc.) block out code that would embed Flash content. I worked at a company that was considering putting Flash in emails, but it was due to the fact that this content couldn't get through to such users that we didn't use Flash. It is really rather difficult and costly (relative to static email) to reliably send multimedia emails to web-based email clients, and these users make up a considerable number of email adresses.

Posted by: Steve Davis on October 13, 2002 04:23 PM

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Well, companies like http://www.sciemarketing.com/ do send flash based email marketing, indeed if you google on this topic you'll find there are yearly conferences and lots of business selling and buying this.
The difference is that flash based emails are usually (not always) sent to opt-in emails, not spam...

Posted by: Manuel on October 13, 2002 05:42 PM

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Hi, I have indeed heard of some people doing both personal and commerical email with SWFs either embedded or referenced, but whether you see it would depend on various factors on your end.

I use a regular ASCII emailer rather than an HTML emailer... don't have to worry about scripts executing or such. (If you do prefer an HTML email reader, then choosing one which uses application-level Netscape Plugins rather than system-level ActiveX Controls will let you control which apps use which extensions.) I also set my emailer to never download an email over 20K in size, because (imho) most of those are garbage regardless of media.

Manuel raises an important point, about opt-in... it's one thing to have unpopular activities between consenting adults (MYOB!), but quite another when such behavior is directed at unsuspecting and non-consenting individuals.

But here's the bigger issue: each year, a lot more things will become technically possible. Some of these will be socially misused. If we make a society of prefab rules we'll be addressing such problems ad-hoc forever. Stronger would be explicit reliance on basic principles... who owns your data? what recourse do you have when someone wastes your time? what recourse when someone swipes your digital content, whether words or designs or whatever?

Posted by: John Dowdell on October 14, 2002 07:11 PM

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