Well, the spirit of giving arrived a little early this year! For my birthday last month, Google announced it was partnering to offer free Wi-Fi on all Virgin America flights until January 15th. Great, thanks Google, now I have to check the feeds even while flying at 500MPH. But I guess that wasn’t enough kindness to satisfy the Goog.
They’ve just announced that they’re going to be extending the free Wi-Fi to 47 entire airports. And not only that, but there’s a raft of giveaways, charity matching, and other nonsense in the bargain as well. I’m starting to think that it’s not “Don’t be evil” so much as “Give away enough stuff that people forget about the evil.” Maybe that’s disingenuous. In fact, I’m sure it is. Oh well, ’tis the season for moral ambiguity.
Here are the details, as briefly as I can state them.
- All airports on this list have Wi-Fi right now. Except Sea-Tac, which is getting it later (just my luck).
- Google will match any donation (up to $250K) made via the Wi-Fi in one of the airports. The airport that has the most donations on January 15 will get a $15,000 credit to donate to a local charity of their choice.
- The service is provided by “Boingo, Advanced Wireless Group, Time Warner Cable, Electronic Media Systems, Lilypad as well as numerous airports that provide wireless services themselves.” i.e. Google is just paying the bill, everything else is the same.
- No data is being collected besides the donation data (you’re not a guinea pig).
- At some point you’ll be able to submit a photo of yourself via the Wi-Fi in order to enter for a prize drawing. Okay…? That’s kind of weird. I guess “Don’t be creepy” isn’t in the Google charter.
Sounds good to me. If anyone finds a catch, let us know, but I think it’s pretty straightforward. More info at the Free Holiday WiFi page, if you’re interested or feeling FAQ-y.
Also, as commenter Harold points out, Yahoo! will be providing Times Square with Wi-Fi for a whole damn year, and Microsoft is partnering with JiWire to put Bing-sponsored free Wi-Fi in “hotels and airports.”
[via LA Times and Black Book, and The P-I for that last bit]
Unfortunately some of these airports are BS. Of course it would be harder to put these services in ORD, LAX, JFK, ATL, etc, but where Bozeman, and State College. Looks like I won’t be receiving free WiFi this year…
True, but somewhere in Montana, somebody is saying “man I’m glad they didn’t just do this at the big international airports.”
Very cool move. Thought it’s not just Google that announced this, but Microsoft too:
http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/184683.asp?source=rss
ah, i had my Google goggles on. I’ll add that in there, thanks.
Oh Please! Anything to get the evil Boingo Wireless out of the sleazy airport cartel business they have been running.
Wireless internet is an absolute must in airports these days. Frankly, if it’s available freely in Hong Kong, Tel Aviv, Athens, Oslo, Auckland, Sao Paulo, Manila, Karachi, Vancouver, Cancun, Santiago, Beijing, Sarajevo, Moscow, Istanbul, Taiwan, Dubai, Warsaw and Vienna… than I fail to understand why it is not provided in all airports here in the US. (I mean, seriously, freakin’ Tehran and Kazakhstan has it!)
U.S Airports already provide us with the miricles of heating, air conditioning, cleaning, electricity, toilets and water. What makes this one utility such a premium? Perhaps the fact that it helps travelers cut down on productivity lost due to the airport mayhem?
Why should Google even be in the position of giving us this lovely gift? You don’t see any of the Edison companies give free holiday electricity to travelers in airports, do you?
I don’t know how you hate google in the past, but I think this offer is really sweet – There are still a dozen of airports (especially on “those” place) who doesn’t have wifi support coz of a tight budget .. It’s good Santa BIG G is there to the rescue.
http://bit.ly/thanks-google
I don’t hate Google! I think this is awesome that they do that. I just don’t think we should ever have arrived at the point that we get Wi-Fi this way.
The flying public needs Wi-Fi to be more productive, to make travel arrangement, to be in contact with their work or social connections while on the go, to get updated with news and work related information. Especially these days, when airport lines are long and security is slow. Travelers need to arrive earlier than before and cut their work days even shorter. This is a basic service; not a premium. If Iran, Romania, Vietnam and Quatar understand it, so can we
When did being “Nice” become bad. I mean I know for some reason some Americans have a predisposition to not trust people who are nice… (Canada)… And for some reason a lot of Americans just don’t understand the concept.
But come one!
The company is doing something beyond what any other company has ever done and to consider this a cover up for other actions is ridiculous.
You name ONE thing that Google has done that can be considered “Evil” by other company standards!
I love my google, but several of these airports have free wifi already (SJC, for example). So what exactly is Google giving us that’s new?
Skype provides free wifi at Tallinn International Airport (Estonia) for a long time already.
Bet that pisses off Boingo! (I’m chuckling inside) And happy, since I’m flying to NYC in 3 weeks!
Oh, so now I look at the list and JFK isn’t on there! That’s crap! Well, at lest my local airport has free wi-fi (ROC)
How is SFO (San Francisco) not on this list? You think Google would install it at the airport 20 minutes from their office.
SFO is also the home of Virgin, which is getting free Wifi, but the airport doesn’t? Makes no sense whatsoever…