Are these gelatinous blobs responsible for Microsoft’s online “advantage” over Google?Microsoft backers are crowing about a new report that says the company has a dominant lead over rival Google when it comes to where people spend the majority of their time online. The comScore report says that in September of this year 3.9 billion hours were spent online for Microsoft versus 2.5 billion hours spent online for Google.Good news for the ‘Soft, right? Not so fast, says Computerworld’s Preston Gralla. Gralla says that comScore’s numbers “may be very misleading and Google may in fact be crushing Microsoft.” Why?Because comScore’s measurements not only cover web sites, they also cover “properties.” Properties like Microsoft Windows Live Messenger, the instant messenger service that automatically pops up when you turn on most PCs and won’t ever go away.According to comScore, Messenger accounts for nearly 70% of Microsoft’s figures. This is a problem considering that Messenger opens up by default on many computers and it actually takes time and effort (too much effort) to get it to stop. Saying the average online user spends more time with Microsoft than Google because of Messenger, therefore, is kind of like saying the average moviegoer watches more previews than features every time they buy a ticket. It’s not like they have much say in the matter.But there is an upside to all of this, says Gralla. The only problem: the upside does not favor Microsoft.The upshot of all this is that when it comes to real time spent online, Google most likely is well ahead of Microsoft. And as for time spent online that can be monetized, that’s not even close. Google is far, far ahead of Microsoft.