Free Airport Wi-Fi For The Holidays From Google

Following up on an announcement by Microsoft on Monday, in which the company noted it's teamed with JiWire to give free wi-fi minutes to those who perform a Bing search at certain "premium" hotspots, Google made a similar announcement on Tuesday. You have to be flying, however: Google's freebie only applies to airports across the U.S.

The promotion is ongoing through January 15, 2010. In concert with Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, Airport Marketing Income and other companies, the service is currently available at 47 airports, including San Jose, Las Vegas, Boston, Baltimore, Burbank, Houston, Indianapolis, Seattle, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, St. Louis and Charlotte. For those in Seattle and Burbank, those airports will now offer airport-wide free wi-fi indefinitely.

It kind of makes you wonder why the Mountain View-based Google didn't pick out any San Francisco Bay Area airports for that indefinite freebie. Meanwhile, in October, Google and Virgin America announced that, during this same period through Jan. 15th, all passengers on Virgin America will have free in-flight wi-fi.

Also in the spirit of holiday giving, once users log on to a wi-fi network in a participating airport, they will have be prompted to make a donation to Engineers Without Borders, the One Economy Corporation or the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. Google will match the donations made across all the networks, up to $250,000. The airport that generates the highest donation average per passenger by January 1, 2010 will receive $15,000 to donate to the local non-profit of their choice.

You can find more info about this promotion, as well as a full list of the participating airports, at www.freeholidaywifi.com.