Google estimated to account for 25% of North American Internet traffic

Surfing the web without using at least one Google service is a lot harder than it used to be. Wired reports on new research from Internet monitoring company Deepfield showing that Google accounts for roughly 25% of all mobile traffic on the Internet in North America, due mostly to its hugely popular, bandwidth-heavy YouTube website. One of the reasons for Google’s surge in traffic has been the advent of smartphones and tablets that have increased the number of times users connect to the web every day. Wired urges caution in reading too much into Deepfield’s numbers, however, since “it’s impossible to get a total picture of the internet” and “Deepfield’s numbers are a best guess based on the traffic flowing through its internet service provider partners.” All the same, it’s a useful snapshot into just how pervasive Google has become in the lives of everyday web users.