Source: Reuters
By:
(LONDON) — They rarely advertise offline and are little spoken of, but pornography sites attract one in three British Internet users, latest figures showed on Thursday.
Research group Netvalue.com said 3.6 million Britons used the Net for porn in May, with “adult” sites accounting for 40 percent of the top 5,800.
Porn.net enjoyed the best penetration, attracting just under half a million users and coming in as the 85th most popular site.
Gambling is catching up quickly as a lure for surfers, with the number of Britons visiting bookmakers’ sites doubling in four months to two million.
Overall, home Internet usage in Britain has grown 15 percent over six months to 9.9 million people in May.
One of several firms measuring Internet usage, Netvalue bases its estimates on a sample of 1,600 British Web surfers and measures overall numbers via a wider telephone survey of homes.
Time spent online has risen steadily to just over six hours in May from 4-1/2 hours in December.
About 40 percent of users are women, and a fifth are over 50.
Microsoft’s MSN remained the most visited Website, with StreetsOnline the top e-commerce site in May for the second month running.
