Death toll rises to three in Fresno chicken plant shooting

Two more people have died after a worker opened fire at a Fresno chicken plant Tuesday morning, authorities said, including the suspected gunman.

The Fresno County coroner's office said Tuesday afternoon that the death toll stood at three and included suspect Lawrence Jones, 42. Police described one of the victims as a 32-year-old man who was pronounced dead at the Valley Protein plant; no information was immediately available about the second victim.

Jones, a "discharged parolee" who had worked at the plant for about 14 months, clocked in to work shortly before 5 a.m. and at about 8:30 "pulled out a handgun and began opening fire" near a cold storage section of the building, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said.

Officers found Jones outside the building with an apparent gunshot wound to the head, Dyer said. They also found a 32-year-old woman who had been shot in the lower back.

Three men were found inside: the 32-year-old who was pronounced dead at the scene, a 34-year-old shot in the head and a 28-year-old shot in the neck. The victims were all taken to a local hospital, along with Jones.

Dyer said investigators still weren't sure what prompted Jones to open fire, but said a coworker told authorities Jones "did not appear himself when he came in to work." Hours later, Dyer said, he pulled out a gun and started shooting.
"I heard pops," said Yeprem Barbarian, who passed the plant during the shooting on his way to his tire shop. "I thought it was tires. Then I walked in, turned on the TV and saw the police cars and sirens showing up."

Officers were searching Jones' Fresno home to ensure there were no other victims, Dyer said.

No one answered a telephone number listed for the plant, also known as Apple Valley Farms Inc. All calls instead went to an answering machine.

"Unfortunately, due to an emergency we are closed for the day," the message said.

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Exclusive - Amazon to win EU e-book pricing tussle with Apple

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union regulators are to end an antitrust probe into e-book prices by accepting an offer by Apple and four publishers to ease price restrictions on Amazon, two sources said on Tuesday.

That decision would hand online retailer Amazon a victory in its attempt to sell e-books cheaper than rivals in the fast-growing market publishers hope will boost revenue and increase customer numbers.

"Faced with years of court battles and uncertainty I can understand why some of these guys decided to fold their cards and take the whipping," said Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, an ebook publisher and distributor that works with Apple.

"It's certainly another win for Amazon," he added. "I have not seen the terms of the final settlement, but my initial reaction is that it places restrictions on what publishers can do, slowing them down just when they need to be more nimble."

A spokesman at the EU Commission said its investigation was not yet finished. Amazon and Apple declined to comment.

In September, Apple and the publishers offered to let retailers set prices or discounts for a period of two years, and also to suspend "most-favored nation" contracts for five years.

Such clauses bar Simon & Schuster, News Corp. unit HarperCollins, Lagardere SCA's Hachette Livre and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, the owner of German company Macmillan, from making deals with rival retailers to sell e-books more cheaply than Apple.

The agreements, which critics say prevent Amazon and other retailers from undercutting Apple's charges, sparked an investigation by the European Commission in December last year.

Pearson Plc's Penguin group, which is also under investigation, did not take part in the offer.

The EU antitrust authority, which in September asked for feedback from rivals and consumers about the proposal, has not asked for more concessions, said one of sources.

"The Commission is likely to accept the offer and announce its decision next month," the source said on Tuesday.

Antoine Colombani, spokesman for competition policy at the European Commission, said: "We have launched a market test in September and our investigation is still ongoing."

Amazon declined to comment, while Apple did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Companies found guilty of breaching EU rules could be fined up to 10 percent of their global sales, which in Apple's case could reach $15.6 billion, based on its 2012 fiscal year.

AGGREGATE PRICING

UBS analysts estimate that e-books account for about 30 percent of the U.S. book market and 20 percent of sales in Britain but are minuscule elsewhere. When Amazon launched its Kindle e-reader, it charged $9.99 per book.

Apple's agency model let publishers set prices in return for a 30 percent cut to the maker of iPhone and iPad.

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating e-book prices. HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette have settled, but Apple, Pengin Group and Macmillan have not.

The DOJ settlement required that retailers must at least break even selling all ebooks from a publisher's available list, according to Coker and Joe Wikert, general manager and publisher at O'Reilly Media Inc.

It was not clear if EU regulators will include a similar requirement, which would prohibit Amazon from pricing all ebooks at a loss, said Wikert, a former publishing executive.

In the United States, Amazon will likely price popular titles at a loss and try to make up the difference on a publisher's other ebooks, he said.

Coker said any such rule could be dangerous in Europe, which still has distinct markets.

"It could allow a single retailer to charge full price in a large market like the U.K., and then sell below cost or for free in multiple smaller markets as a strategy to kill regional ebook retailing upstarts before they take root," Coker said.

FROWNING ON ONLINE TRADE CURBS

Antitrust regulators tend to frown on restrictions on online trade and the case is a good example, said Mark Tricker, a partner at Brussels-based law firm Norton Rose.

"This case shows the online world continues to be a major focus for the Commission," he said.

"These markets change very quickly and if you don't stamp down on potential infringements of competition rules, you can have significant consequences."

(Additional reporting by Alistair Barr in San Francisco; Editing by Rex Merrifield, David Goodman and David Gregorio)

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Controversial “SEAL Team Six” Film Gives Nat Geo Highest Ratings in a Year

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama bin Laden” might have drawn cries of partisan bias, but despite the controversy – or perhaps because of it – the film about the killing of the terrorist leader yielded big numbers with its premiere on National Geographic Channel on Sunday night, handing the network its best ratings in more than a year, and the sixth-highest ratings in the network’s history.

Sunday’s premiere of “Seal Team Six,” which was initially slated for theatrical release before getting snapped up by National Geographic Channel, posted a 1.4 rating in the 25-54 demographic – four times the network’s average in the Sunday 8 to 10 p.m. timeslot this season. In total viewers, the military dramatization drew 4.7 million people, with an average 2.7 million tuning in throughout the premiere.

“SEAL Team Six” posted the highest performance in the demographic since the August 2011 special “George W. Bush: The 9/11 Interview,” which drew a 1.7 in the 25-54 demo.

“We are overwhelmed that viewers across the country responded en masse to this socially relevant, factually based and entertaining film that highlighted the real inside story behind the manhunt for bin Laden and the heroes in our military and intelligence agencies,” said David Lyle, CEO National Geographic Channels. “It proved that no matter who Americans are planning to vote for, a good film is a good film, and we are happy to have had such success with our first original broadcast of a feature film inspired by real-life events.”

The film’s premiere date – just two days before the election – drew suspicion from some of the more conspiracy-minded segments of the population, who suggested that the premiere might have been planned to boost President Barack Obama‘s chances in the election by reminding the public of one of his major accomplishments during his first term. The criticism was fueled by the fact that unabashed Obama supporter Harvey Weinstein served as an executive producer on the film.

The network denied the allegations, with Lyle telling TheWrap last month, “The movie itself is its own defense; it’s a perfectly straightforward dramatization of what happened.”

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Global Update: Polio Eradication Efforts in Pakistan Focus on Pashtuns

Michael Kamber for The New York Times

Polio will never be eradicated in Pakistan until a way is found to persuade poor Pashtuns to embrace the vaccine, according to a study released by the World Health Organization.

A survey of 1,017 parents of young children found that 41 percent had never heard of polio and 11 percent refused to vaccinate their children against it. The survey was done in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and the only big city in the world where polio persists; it was published in the agency’s November bulletin.

Parents from poor families “cited lack of permission from family elders,” said Dr. Anita Zaidi, who teaches pediatrics at the Aga Khan University in Karachi. Some rich parents also disdained the vaccine, saying it was “harmful or unnecessary,” she added.

Pashtuns account for 75 percent of Pakistan’s polio cases even though they are only 15 percent of the population. Wealthy children are safer because the virus travels in sewage, and their neighborhoods may have covered sewers and be less flood-prone.

Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in next-door Afghanistan, where polio has also never been wiped out. Most Taliban fighters are Pashtun, and some Taliban threatened to kill vaccinators earlier this year. Two W.H.O. vaccinators were shot in Karachi in July.

Rumors persist that the vaccine is a plot to sterilize Muslims. But the eradication drive is recruiting Pashtuns as vaccinators and asking prominent religious leaders from various sects to make videos endorsing the vaccine.

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Changing of the Guard: Facing Protests, China’s Business Investment May Be Cooling

SHIFANG, China — Local leaders were all smiles this summer at a groundbreaking ceremony for a vast copper smelting project that seemed like the answer to the chronic unemployment that has plagued this city in northern Sichuan ever since a devastating earthquake in 2008.

Reuters

A protest against plans to expand a petrochemical plant in Ningbo, China, last month. More investment projects are running into opposition from a growing Chinese middle class concerned about environmental damage.

Articles in this series are examining the implications for China and the rest of the world of the coming changes in the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.

But within days, the tree-lined plaza at the heart of the city was packed with thousands of youths, protesting that the $1.6 billion factory would pose a pollution hazard. After two nights of street battles pitting youths against the riot police, city leaders canceled the smelter.

“The environment is more important” than new investments or jobs, said a young woman sitting, on a recent afternoon, at the cafe across the street from the plaza, now empty except for a clutch of retirees gathered under the clock tower.

China’s economic boom over the last three decades has depended overwhelmingly on a build-at-all-costs investment strategy in which pollution concerns, the preservation of neighborhoods and other such questions have been swept aside. But that approach is starting to backfire, posing one of the biggest challenges for the new generation of Chinese policy makers who will take over at the Communist Party Congress, which starts on Thursday.

New investment projects used to be seen as the best way to keep the Chinese public happy with jobs and rising incomes, assuring social stability — a paramount goal of the Communist Party — while frequently enriching local politicians as well.

But from Shifang in the west to the port of Ningbo in the east, where a week of sometimes violent protests forced the suspension on Oct. 28 of plans to expand a chemical plant, more projects are running into public hostility. In many cases, they are running into opposition not just from farmers who do not want their houses and fields confiscated, but also from a growing middle class fearful that new factories will lead to more environmental damage.

In response to this and other worries about the economy, a number of influential officials and business leaders in China have stepped up their calls for changes aimed at increasing the efficiency of investment and simultaneously shifting the country toward a greater reliance on consumption.

But China’s leaders, including the outgoing prime minister, Wen Jiabao, have been talking about such a transformation for years with little sign of success, as state-controlled banks continue to lend huge sums to politically powerful state-owned enterprises and local governments.

Frenzied construction of roads, bridges, tunnels and rail lines over the last decade has left China with world-class infrastructure. But it has also produced deeply indebted local governments that are struggling to finance more projects.

At the same time, vast unused capacity in practically every industrial sector has crippled profitability and left manufacturing firms straining to repay their borrowings, a problem that has been partly masked by banks in the habit of simply rolling over loans rather than recognizing losses.

“All Chinese industries are like that — can you dig out which area of Chinese industry is not in overcapacity?” said Li Junfeng, a longtime director general for energy at China’s top economic planning agency.

Investment reached 46 percent of China’s economic output last year. By comparison, Japan’s investment rate peaked at 36 percent, which it reached in the early 1970s; South Korea topped out at 39 percent in the late 1980s.

Growth in Japan and South Korea started to slow and eventually tumbled after investment peaked. The big question now is when China will run into the same limits, and how rapidly change will take place, said Diana Choyleva, an economist at Lombard Street Research in Hong Kong. “The potential for a big crisis is always there,” she said.

Even experts who strongly favor fundamental policy changes, like moving to a more market-oriented system for allocating bank loans and setting interest rates, doubt that China’s leaders are preparing to move quickly. Conversations at senior levels of the Communist Party appear to have focused so far on reducing the state’s role in the day-to-day management of many state-owned enterprises rather than selling them or breaking them up.

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With one day left, Romney, Obama seek to boost turnout

LYNCHBURG, Va. -- President Obama and challenger Mitt Romney barreled into the final day of campaigning ahead of Tuesday's election, charging across a handful of states likely to settle their too-close-to-call duel for the White House.

With an eye on maximizing turnout of the party faithful, the two candidates staged rallies that doubled as get-out-the-vote efforts, providing celebrity entertainment to help spike attendance.

Obama appeared Monday morning alongside Bruce Springsteen before a crowd of about 18,000 in Madison, Wis., telling supporters, "After all we've been through together, we can't give up now."

Romney campaigned in Virginia for the third time in five days, underscoring its importance to his White House hopes.

Speaking to a boisterous crowd of several thousand in Lynchburg, the GOP nominee acknowledged his campaign's ground troops, as both candidates kicked their turnout machines into high gear.

INTERACTIVE: Battleground states map

Romney thanked the volunteers making phone calls, putting up yard signs, "and maybe  convincing a co-worker to vote for [Wisconsin Rep.] Paul Ryan and me. And now, let’s make sure that we get everyone we know out to vote on Tuesday.  Every single voter -- get 'em out!”

While the candidates racked up air miles, the money hunt continued unabated; a fitting close to the costliest federal elections in the nation's history. A midday email solicitation, under the signature of Ann Romney, the candidate's wife, asked for donors to kick in $15 to help pay for last minute get-out-the-vote efforts.

Even as the candidates hopscotched across  battleground states, much of the focus remained on Ohio, the most fiercely contested of all.  It was the one state both men planned to visit Monday, with election eve rallies scheduled in Columbus.  Rapper Jay-Z joined the president and, just a couple of hours later, the Marshall Tucker Band was set to  perform for Romney.

National opinion surveys continued to a show the two men effectively tied. But Obama held a slim but significant lead in the more important state-by-state fight for the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.

Both candidates were focused Monday on states crucial to their strategies. Obama sought to fortify his Midwestern firewall in Wisconsin, Iowa and, most especially, Ohio. Romney stumped in three virtual must-win states: Florida, Virginia and Ohio, and planned to wrap up where his campaign started, with a pre-midnight rally in New Hampshire with singer Kid Rock.

Fighting exhaustion, each fell back on well-worn stump speeches.

PHOTOS: President Obama’s past

The president cited passage of landmark healthcare legislation, his repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" prohibition on gay soldiers, and imposition of tougher regulations on Wall Street.

"We have come too far to turn back now," he told the crowd in Madison. "We've come too far to let our hearts grow faint. Now is the time to keep pushing forward."

Turning to Romney, he questioned his rival's constancy and, indirectly, his character.

"It's also about trust, Wisconsin. You may not agree with every decision I've made. You know, Michelle doesn't either," Obama said, referring to the First Lady. "...But you know I say what I mean and mean what I say."

In Virginia, Romney urged his supporters to reach out to the few remaining undecided voters and said that his background and record shows that he offers the true change that Obama promised four years ago and failed to deliver.

“The question of the election comes down to this: Do you want four more years like the last four years or do you want real change? Now of course, President Obama promised change, he just couldn’t deliver it. I not only promise change, I have a record of achieving it,” Romney said, citing his work in business, helping rescue the troubled 2002 Winter  Olympics and as governor of Massachusetts. “That’s why I’m running for president, I know how to change the nation, how to get it back on course, how to create jobs, how to get a balanced budget, how to get rising take home pay.”

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Apple sells three million iPads over first weekend

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William Shatner – there’s an app for him

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) – Actor William Shatner is having a moment. A couple of years after CBS canceled his Twitter-inspired “$ #*! My Dad Says” TV comedy, Shatner is at the top of the tech world.

The former “Star Trek” captain, now 81, is featured in Blindlight Apps “Shatoetry”, which catapulted to the top of the entertainment app list on Apple iTunes last week on its first day of release.

The celebrity app allows users to choose from hundreds of words to arrange sentences, which Shatner will then recite in his trademark voice and style. There is also a mode that allows Shatner fans to collaborate on “Shatisms” and there are single-player challenges like creating Haiku and poetry.

Shatner, who is currently touring the country with his critically-acclaimed one-man Broadway show, “Shatner’s World,” took a few minutes to talk technology with Reuters.

Q: How would you like to expand this app moving forward? Perhaps adding music?

A: “Well, we have that in mind. Words to music. We have in mind holiday things. We have in mind events in your life, words so that you can use them as well. We will increase this if people love it and tell other people that they love it. When we get an audience we know that is worthwhile, we will add to it.”

Q: One audience you know you definitely have out there is “Star Trek” fans. Do you see any opportunities with special app add-ons for them?

A: “Well, yes. I don’t think we’ll leave opportunity unexplored, but I wanted to be very careful about how we introduce it so it is not something that is derogatory or stupid. I want to make sure that it’s used in the way it’s meant to be used, which is for your entertainment.”

Q: Do you see opportunities for other actors to work with you on this app?

A: “We hope that it becomes popular enough to interest people into doing some words.”

Q: So users would be able to mix your words with other actors’ words through this app?

A: “Yes. Exactly. Have them do keywords like ‘love.’ There are certain words that everybody wants to use like ‘love’ and ‘hate’ and words that you use somewhere in your conversation… Commonly used words that are positive, I think that would be a way of getting a well-known person to take a chance in interpreting that word several different ways and know that they won’t look foolish, or be made to look foolish.”

Q: How are you taking advantage of today’s technology to connect with fans?

A: “I’m using it in as many ways as feasible. I’m doing podcasts. I’m certainly doing everything else, Facebook, Twitter and all that kind of thing. I’m taking advantage of communicating with the people out there as much as possible, and this app is one of those ways.”

Q: What technology do you have?

A: “I have iPhone, an iPad and I will be getting an iPad Mini shortly.”

Q: How do you use those devices?

A: “I don’t play games. I read the newspapers. I’ve got a dictation sound-to-print app and since I don’t type very well, I find myself dictating to it and sending the notes on. It’s a truly creative tool with. Once you have a means of communicating – there’s so much wrong with the world and so many crises in the mix here that, if we can communicate faster and better, we may be able to fix them before the end of the world, as far as human beings are concerned.”

Q: How’s the tour going for your show “Shatner’s World”?

A: “I’m going to be in Connecticut and New Jersey this week. I’m playing about four different places that are just opening up now. My heart goes out to the nightmare that these people are in. I feel a little awkward in talking about providing a laugh or two, but on the other hand some people may need that, and that’s what I’ll be doing….I will be with my heart on my sleeve trying to entertain people who have had a great deal of hardship in the last week.”

Q: A lot of my friends in New York and New Jersey are still without power after Hurricane Sandy.

A: “I know, and hopefully by the time I get there, there will be power. And hopefully by that time, they’ll be of a mind to be able to want to be entertained.”

(Reporting by John Gaudiosi, editing by Jill Serjeant and Marguerita Choy)

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Unlikely Model for H.I.V. Prevention: Adult Film Industry

Stephanie Diani for The New York Times

INDUSTRY DATABASE Shylar Cobi, right, a film producer, confirmed test results of the actors who perform as James Deen and Stoya.

LOS ANGELES — Before they take off all their clothes, the actors who perform as James Deen and Stoya go through a ritual unique to the heterosexual adult film industry.

First, they show each other their cellphones: Each has an e-mail from a laboratory saying he or she just tested negative for H.I.V., syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhea.

Then they sit beside the film’s producer, Shylar Cobi, as he checks an industry database with their real names to confirm that those negative tests are less than 15 days old.

Then, out on the pool terrace of the day’s set — a music producer’s hilltop home with a view of the Hollywood sign — they yank down their pants and stand around joking as Mr. Cobi quickly inspects their mouths, hands and genitals for sores.

“I’m not a doctor,” Mr. Cobi, who wears a pleasantly sheepish grin, says. “I’m only qualified to do this because I’ve been shooting porn since 1990 and I know what looks bad.”

Bizarre as the ritual is, it seems to work.

The industry’s medical consultants say that about 350,000 sex scenes have been shot without condoms since 2004, and H.I.V. has not been transmitted on a set once.

Outside the world of pornography, the industry’s testing regimen is not well known, and no serious academic study of it has ever been done. But when it was described to several AIDS experts, they all reacted by saying that there were far fewer infections than they would have expected, given how much high-risk sex takes place.

“I don’t think there’s any question that it works,” said Dr. Allan Ronald, a Canadian AIDS specialist who did landmark studies of the virus in prostitutes in a Nairobi slum. “I’m a little uncomfortable, because it’s giving the wrong message — that you can have multiple sex partners without condoms — but I can’t say it doesn’t work.”

Despite the regimen’s apparent success, California health officials and an advocacy group, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, are trying to make it illegal to shoot without condoms. They argue that other sexually transmitted diseases are rampant in the industry, though the industry trade group disputes that.

In January, the city of Los Angeles passed a law requiring actors to wear condoms. A measure to do the same for the whole county is on the ballot on Tuesday.

Producers say the condom requirement will drive them out of business since consumers will not buy such films. Local newspapers like The Los Angeles Times oppose the ballot measure, calling it well-intentioned but unenforceable, and warning that it could drive up to 10,000 jobs out of state.

Very frequent testing makes it almost impossible for an actor to stay infected without being caught, said Dr. Jacques Pepin, the author of “The Origins of AIDS” and an expert on transmission rates. “And if you are having sex mostly with people who themselves are tested all the time, this must further reduce the risk.”

When the virus first enters a high-risk group like heroin users, urban prostitutes or habitués of gay bathhouses, it usually infects 30 to 60 percent of the cohort within a few years, studies have shown. The same would be expected in pornography, performers can have more than a dozen partners a month, but the industry says self-policing has prevented it..

“Our talent base has sex exponentially more than other people, but we’re all on the same page about keeping it out,” said Steven Hirsch, the founder of Vivid Entertainment, one of the biggest studios.

Performers have to test negative every 28 days, although some studios recently switched to every 14.

If a test is positive, all the studios across the country that adhere to standards set by the Free Speech Coalition, an industry trade group, are obliged to stop filming until all the on-screen partners of that performer, all their partners, and all their partners’ partners, are found and retested. In 2004, the industry shut down for three months to do that.

It has had briefer shutdowns in each of the last four years.

In 2009 and 2010, no other infected performers were found. Coalition representatives said an infected woman in 2009, from Nevada, may have had an infected boyfriend, and offered evidence that a man infected in 2010 in Florida had worked outside the industry as a prostitute. The 2011 test was a false positive.

A shutdown in August came after several actors got syphilis, not H.I.V. All performers were given a choice: Take antibiotics, or pass two back-to-back syphilis tests 14 days apart.

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Silicon Valley Objects to Online Privacy Rule Proposals for Children

Washington is pushing Silicon Valley on children’s privacy, and Silicon Valley is pushing back.

Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter have all objected to portions of a federal effort to strengthen online privacy protections for children. In addition, media giants like Viacom and Disney, cable operators, marketing associations, technology groups and a trade group representing toy makers are arguing that the Federal Trade Commission’s proposed rule changes seem so onerous that, rather than enhance online protections for children, they threaten to deter companies from offering children’s Web sites and services altogether.

“If adopted, the effect of these new rules would be to slow the deployment of applications that provide tremendous benefits to children, and to slow the economic growth and job creation generated by the app economy,” Catherine A. Novelli, vice president of worldwide government affairs at Apple, wrote in comments to the agency.

But the underlying concern, for both the industry and regulators, is not so much about online products for children themselves. It is about the data collection and data mining mechanisms that facilitate digital marketing on apps and Web sites for children — and a debate over whether these practices could put children at greater risk.

In 1998, Congress passed the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act in an effort to give parents control over the collection and dissemination of private information about their children online. The regulation, known as Coppa, requires Web site operators to obtain a parent’s consent before collecting personal details, like home addresses or e-mail addresses, from children under 13.

Now, federal regulators are preparing to update that rule, arguing that it has not kept pace with advances like online behavioral advertising, a practice that uses data mining to tailor ads to people’s online behavior. The F.T.C. wants to expand the types of data whose collection requires prior parental permission to include persistent ID systems, like unique device codes or customer code numbers stored in cookies, if those codes are used to track children online for advertising purposes.

The idea is to preclude companies from compiling dossiers on the online activities — and by extension the health, socioeconomic status, race or romantic concerns — of individual children across the Web over time.

“What children post online or search as part of their homework should not haunt them as they apply to colleges or for jobs,” Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts and co-chairman of the Bipartisan Congressional Privacy Caucus, said in a recent phone interview. “YouTube should not be turned into YouTracked.”

The agency’s proposals have provoked an intense reaction from some major online operators, television networks, social networks, app platforms and advertising trade groups. Some argue that the F.T.C. has overstepped its mandate in proposing to greatly expand the rule’s scope.

Others say that using ID systems like customer code numbers to track children “anonymously” online is benign — and that collecting information about children’s online activities is necessary to deliver the ads that finance free content and services for children.

“What is the harm we are trying to prevent here?” said Alan L. Friel, chairman of the media and technology practice at the law firm Edwards Wildman Palmer. “We risk losing a lot of the really good educational and entertaining content if we make things too difficult for people to operate the sites or generate revenue from the sites.”

The economic issue at stake is much bigger than just the narrow children’s audience. If the F.T.C. were to include customer code numbers among the information that requires a parent’s consent, industry analysts say, it might someday require companies to get similar consent for a practice that represents the backbone of digital marketing and advertising — using such code numbers to track the online activities of adults.

“Once you’ve said it’s personal information for children that requires consent, you’ve set the framework for a requirement of consent to be applied to another population,” Mr. Friel said. “If it is personal information for someone that’s 12, it doesn’t cease being personal information when they are 13.”

Indeed, many of the F.T.C.’s proposed rule revisions have vocal detractors.

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