The development of information and communication technologies over the last 25 years has changed the context and practice of participation. There emerged the concept of e-participation, meaning the interaction between the sphere of civil society and the formal sphere of politics and administration, through information technology. The paper presents the functions of e-participation, the tools used and the criticism raised at this method of engaging citizens. Further, e-participation practice in Poland is introduced with a detailed case of web surveys in Poznań which are used as a consultation tool. Finally, the conclusions are offered, based on an analysis of the use of web surveys as a tool of e-participation. The surveys carried out in Poznań can be classified as based on non-probabilistic sampling. They rely on the voluntary participation of respondents who come forward. Internet surveys meet the mostly activation. Thus, they empowered marginalized social groups (‘give voice’ to inhabitants) gave greater legitimacy to decisions. To a lesser extent, this tool contributed to improving the quality of decision making and to an improvement in the workings of the administration. The implementation of the latter two functions would require greater attention to the probabilistic characteristic of the sampling.