Google and Flash

I have heard that Google - in doing searching - heavily penalizes the use of Flash - either directly - or indirectly because there is no way for it to analyze Flash for content - that is, it is not 'open.'

Anyone?

 

I mean that it actually reads the existence of Flash code and lowers the 'rating' - or indirectly it not being set up (because of the way Flash is anyhow coded or whatever) to recognize any Flash content - so if a site is about 'green widgets' - and all references to 'green widgets' are 'inside' a Flash module - Google will never produce results for that site if someone has used 'green widgets' as a search item

Basically - I have been told to avoid the use of Flash at all costs if one wishes to get listed under Google with any decent 'ranking'

As said - I don't know if this is an explicit aspect of Google - or implicit - or definitely all hogwash.