Flash AutoPlay is a Major PITA!
Yeah, yeah, I know, autoplay is coded in the individual webpages. Or, more specifically, in the sidebar ads embedded into multitudes of web pages. Mike M's raving response rant to another poster here notwithstanding, this problem IS within Adobe's control.
The solution is stunning trivial. On the Playback tab of the Flash Player Settings Manager dialog box (via the "Global Settings..." link) add a checkbox to Disable Autoplay. Then user preference can control the damn thing! Flash simply acts as if every page is coded with autoplay=false or whatever nonsense it takes. This is called an 'override', it's not a new concept. Flash already does this with all the AskMe/BlockIt options in the same dialog box.
No, hitting mute is not a solution. Nor is disabling all Active-X, or any of the other kludges out there. Tracking down the offending video(s) when you've opened multiple newspaper web pages at the same time is just a mess.
Help us Adobe-Wan Kenobi, you're our only hope!
FWIW, I'm using Adoble Flash Player 11.9.900.117 on Windows 7 Home Premium SP1