In December 2004 18.6% of Internet time was spent shopping

In December 2004, Web users spent 18.6% of their online time at shopping sites. The traffic to e-commerce outfits is up both month-over-month (17% in November 2004) and year-over-year ( 18.2% in December 2003). The share of time spent browsing online news or entertainment Web sites dropped to 38.1% - the lowest proportion since June 2004, when content sites accounted for 36.5% of online time. The share of time at content sites was higher year-over-year from December 2003, when it accounted for 34% of online time. The share of time spent at search engines dropped slightly to 4.2% last month, from 4.3% in November. Nevertheless, consumers spent a greater proportion of online time searching than in December 2003, when search accounted for 3.7% of Internet time.