Mediaboss Marketing

bY SANDRA GUY Business Reporter/sguy@suntimes.com March 22, 2012 3:22PM

The Internet contributed 4.7 percent of this countrys economic activity in 2010 more than the federal governments 4.3 percent, according to a study published Monday.

The study by Boston Consulting Group estimates the Internet, if viewed as its own industry, would generate $684 billion and be a bigger contributor to the U.S. economy than the federal government, which generated $625 billion in 2010.

The numbers reveal that the United States has the largest Internet economy in the world in absolute terms.

The fastest-growing Internet economies are in Argentina and India, the study showed.

The study considered the Internets use in e-commerce, consumer access payments, business investments and governments buildouts of web networks and infrastructure.

Since the day the first domain was registered in 1985, the Internet has not stopped growing, the report says. The scale and pace is still accelerating, and the nature of the Internet who uses it, how and for what is changing rapidly, too.

The study forecast that the Internet will grow 10 percent each year through 2016 in developed countries such as the United States and Europe.

The study also revealed that people in the United States would rather give up satellite navigation (84 percent), fast food (83 percent), chocolate (77 percent) and alcohol (73 percent) than forfeit their Internet user for a year. But a years worth of Internet access wouldnt be negotiable for giving up sex (21 percent would still trade it in favor of the Internet), their car (10 percent would give that up) and their morning or evening showers (7 percent), the study showed.

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Report: Internet contributes more than feds