Public participatory geographic information systems (PP GIS) aim at enlarging citizen’s involvement and participation in decision-making processes. In this paper we review existing online PP GIS applications and present the framework of our analysis. We concentrate on the aspects of interactivity of such applications and the GIS functionalities needed for their operation. First results of ongoing research exhibit that a vast majority of applications only deliver information to the citizen in a one-way communication process. Although the technology is available, only few applications fulfill criteria of our analysis to be classified as two-way communication tools. We conclude the paper with directions for our further research.