E-commerce giant Amazon has put the kibosh on Adobe Flash. The e-commerce giant announced a change in its ad policy to eliminate Flash ads on the site starting September 1. The Flash ban aims to ensure customers have consistent experiences on Amazon.

Recent browser setting updates from Google Chrome as well as existing browser settings from Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari that limit Flash content displayed on Web pages, led the company to make the move. Beyond Flash, Amazon is also concerned about automatic downloads in ads.

“Advertisements must not trigger downloads of software to a user's computer without first providing the user with clear and conspicuous disclosures regarding the installation, operation and removal of the software, and providing the user with an opportunity to decline to install the software after such disclosures are made,” according to Amazon.

Was It about Security?

We turned to Tim Erlin, director of IT security and risk strategy at advanced threat detection firm Tripwire, to get his thoughts on Amazon’s move. While it may seem obvious that Amazon’s decision was made with security in mind, he told us it’s not necessarily true.

“With more and more users disabling Flash or using a ‘click-to-play’ setting in their browser, Flash-based ads simply aren’t being seen as effectively,” Erlin said. “After all, who specifically enables Flash to view a banner ad?” Good question. Erin said Amazon’s move is an example of security driving a meaningful change in the industry.

“While Amazon may not be directly concerned about the vulnerabilities in Flash, enough users -- and browsers -- have disabled it because of security to effectively force a change from Amazon,’ Erlin said. “If other advertising networks follow suit, it will force attackers to move to a different, and hopefully less effective, platform for malvertizing.”

Why Gang Up on Flash?

Flash came under fire in July after security researchers discovered bugs in the software that hackers were actively exploiting. At that time, Mozilla, the maker of the popular Firefox Web browser, started blocking Flash because it put all versions of the player for Windows, Macintosh and Linux at risk.

Facebook security chief Alex Stamos was especially vocal about the future of Flash. He made his opinion known in a tweet: “It is time for Adobe to announce the end-of-life date for Flash and to ask the browsers to set killbits on the same day.”

The flaws were made public after the Hacking Team -- the Italian company famous for supplying hacker tools to the world -- was hacked. Adobe said successful exploitation could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system. Adobe also revealed that the exploits targeting these vulnerabilities have been published publicly.

The late Apple CEO Steve Jobs went on the offense about Flash in 2010, explaining in an open letter why Apple did not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. At that time, Jobs insisted the decision was made based on technology issues. Flash is proprietary but Jobs said the standards pertaining to the Web should be open. His bigger beef, though, was security.

Could the end of Flash be at hand? Sound off in the box below.