Let Your Mouse Do The Walking

And to think the boss was worried that employees surfed porn sites at work - let the truth be told: they really go shopping on the Web during working hours.

Researchers at comScore Networks Inc. Wednesday projected that holiday shopping on the Internet this year will drive fourth-quarter online retail sales up 27 percent from fourth-quarter 2001 to $13.8 billion - and most of those purchases will take place from high-speed, workplace PCs.

Reston, Virginia-based comScore said its retail sales figures exclude travel products, but that's no matter to the bosses of America's corporate world.

Move over Hugh Hefner, here comes Santa Claus.

ComScore, which tracks online commerce and Internet audiences, said it expects that holiday shopping on U.S. retail Web sites will kick into high gear on Dec. 2, when consumers return to work from the Thanksgiving holiday.

At work, they have access to high-speed Internet connections that make browsing Web sites faster and easier, comScore said. The result is a surefire fix for the weekday shopaholic.

ComScore said its data consistently shows consumers spend twice as much money on online purchases made through workplace PCs than on purchases made using home-based PCs.

The company based its fourth-quarter online sales forecast on a "brisk" pace of Internet shopping to date this year, despite the weak economy and slackening consumer confidence.

It seems that all those hard times and slow days at offices across corporate America have left workers with little to do, but shop.