Online surveys are a horrible idea for this kind of information gathering. You have effectively zero idea if the respondents are even in the EU. All it takes is a VPN subscription to completely trash an online survey of this nature.
Sure. At the same time they provide useful input from real users too. Humans are good at spotting fake from real input on this kind of surveys. In the end it is merely a way of including ideas and details that sometimes are overlooked.
Source: I've supported some of the European Union activities.
Online surveys are a horrible idea for this kind of information gathering
It skews the demographic towards people who spend alot of time online and like to do surveys. Most working people won't have the time or even know it's there. They might as well set policy by which memes get the most likes.
So? It's not a vote, it's a consultation. The idea being that anyone can give their input on the matter so it doesn't matter who is responding. The voting part, if it comes to that, comes later by the European Parliament.
Note that the European Parliament can't initiate legislation[1], and the Council appears to be able to ignore Parliament's opinion.
"The European Parliament may approve or reject a legislative proposal, or propose amendments to it. The Council is not legally obliged to take account of Parliament’s opinion but in line with the case-law of the Court of Justice, it must not take a decision without having received it"
Note that you quoted the special "Consultation" procedure instead of the ordinary legislative procedure where EP has more power.
According to the page, the consultation procedure "is applicable in a limited number of legislative areas, such as internal market exemptions and competition law".
