rick hutchenson, their principle, and melody lassiter, are here as well. chairperson campos: colleagues. any questions? vice chairperson mirkarimi: what do you think that the net effect of the study actually helps us with? is it answering the question about interest in the long-term condition placed on our competitive or not competitive bidding process or is it on stipulating conditions on those exact contract before us now? >> i think that two things answer to that. we are looking at a comparison. we're not prejudging any kind of policy issue or anything like. that we're simply looking at a comparison of how this election process occurs in other jurisdictions as compared to others. and then there will be a section on barging and then there will be a history of how san francisco developed its process and out of that there will be some recommendations, i believe, from the consultant, we're requesting that, as to are there areas that you might want to consider as policymakers for further analysis or for discussion on a particular condition with the current c

what i thought i would do is give a very brief statement, and i know that senator hutchenson is on the way and other senators are on the way. we might dispense with the opening statements for all the senators if that's okay, except i thought i might call on senator kerry for a few moments to talk about his legislation and then go on to the panel, and once senator hutchenson shows up, we'll recognize her for an opening statement. as we start today, i want to welcome everyone to the commerce committee's meeting on consumer privacy. this is a challenging endeavor. we want to balance the free internet, you know, the ability to access free content for all users with concerns raised about user's priefty and -- privacy and joint information practices online, so consumers can conduct research, read online newspapers, write e-mails and respond to each other in realtime. some of them will be worried about how their information is collected online. some of them may be willing to surrender some information in exchange for the free content. others don't have any idea this is going on, so this is a