Google Gets in Holiday Spirit, Makes Gift of WiFi Internet for You and Loved Ones

Posted by Daniel Shain

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This holiday season (starting now and extending through January 15th, 2010) Google is helping to provide free WiFi in 47 major airports across the country. And you'll only really see two ads - one asks you if you want to use Google, and the other if you want to donate to charity. Aw! Google, you've gotten us again.

Google is working in conjunction with "Boingo, Advanced Wireless Group, Time Warner Cable, Electronic Media Systems, Lilypad as well as numerous airports" to provide free Wi-Fi in 47 airports across the nation, including "Las Vegas, San Jose, Boston, Baltimore, Houston, Indianapolis, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, St. Louis, Charlotte, Burbank and Seattle," the last two in fact which will now be offering free WiFi on their own once Google's "gift" ends. Customers who have paid accounts will be given the option to connect to their paid network or Google's free one, so it won't be eliminating the network you're used to, just providing a free alternative.

Google will prompt you to use Chrome and make Google your default search engine, but that's all for annoying ads, and pretty nominal. You'll also be prompted to make a donation to either Engineers Without Borders, the One Economy Corporation or the Climate Savers Computing Initiative - and Google will be matching all donations given during this time up to $250K, even going so far as agreeing to reward the "best" airport at raising money with an additional $15K to donate to a local non-profit of their choice. Go Local Airport Pride!

What does Google get out of this, besides our usual blind faith in their goodwill? Just the usual - another few terabytes of your non-personal information in bulk.

(Quoted from FAQ)
Q. What kind of information are you collecting about users with the networks?

The network operators collect the information they need to run the network, and Google will have access to some aggregate, non-personally identifiable information.


Still, if I'm in an airport in the next 2 months, I'll certainly be taking advantage. See here for press release and full list of airports.

Via crunchgear

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Comments

  • By: hobbies Dec 05, 2009 10:25 PM

    I have heard that , many sites are decorating for the holidays... they are offering new stuffs , gifts for the visitors, like http://buyergen.com ... nyway , thanks for this writing.

  • By: configuration management Nov 16, 2009 4:58 AM

    Ya I have heard a lot about the wi-fi facility provided by google and I'm very much great-full to them.By the means of this feature I can stay in touch with all my friends and family anywhere I go.
    configuration management

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