Where do people spend more and more of their time on the Internet? In your face on Facebook – that's where. Indeed, Americans now are socializing more on Facebook than conducting searches and related activities on Google, according to recent statistics.

So what is the average time spent on Facebook? The data, from comScore Inc., details that for August 2010, Americans spent 41.1 million minutes on Facebook – a whopping 9.9 percent of their overall online monthly minutes.

This surpassed Americans' 39.8 million minutes and 9.6 percent of total spent on Google sites, which include Gmail, YouTube and Google news.

The Yahoo sites come in behind Facebook and Google, with 37.7 million monthly minutes and 9.1 percent of total use time on Yahoo sites. The surge of Facebook is evidenced by the fact that a year earlier, in August 2009, Americans average time spent on Facebook was only 5 percent of their online time.

Plainly, social networking has come into its own.

Biography

Eric Sinrod is a partner in the San Francisco office of Duane Morris. His focus includes information technology and intellectual property disputes. To receive his weekly columns, send an e-mail to with the word "Subscribe" in the subject line.

Disclaimer: This column is prepared and published for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice. The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the author's law firm or its individual partners.

Reprinted with permission of Findlaw.com