Background:
The European e-public services organisation e-Forum has partnered with the Internet measurement and analysis service Nielsen/NetRatings to complete the first pan-European benchmarking study on the audience and success of e-government and non-profit organisation web sites. The study, which will be published during the first e-Forum Summit on 15-16 September in Valencia, Spain, was compiled from feedback from a panel of over 39,000 Internet users in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden and Italy. The researchers' aim was to quantify and qualify the audiences for the above eight countries' e-government sites, and based on these data to draw up profiles of e-government service users. These profiles are expected to greatly promote the work of service providers and policymakers engaged in e-government service development.