Your flight is delayed but WiFi is free, thanks Google

This holiday season, Google is stepping up and covering the WiFi fees in airports across the country as part of a marketing push. Users will be greeted by Google offering classic marketing techniques such as an offer to change your homepage to Google, download Chrome browser or an offer to donate to three charities.

They advertise, we win

If you’ve traveled enough, you know free WiFi in airports is a rare occurrence. It seems everywhere I’ve traveled as of late has been blockaded by Boingo or other scheme set to drain my pocket of loose change. Recently, Google also cut a similar deal on Virgin Airlines where Google will cover the WiFi fees for its new in-flight WiFi service for the holidays.

But Google isn’t the only one jumping on the free WiFi train. Recently Lexus covered the fees on American Airlines as a way to introduce their new 2010 LS line and eBay covered WiFi on Delta during the Thanksgiving holiday. Yahoo is providing free WiFi in Times Square and Microsoft is covering the cost for WiFi at several different hotspots as way to get Bing out to more people.

This is a trend we’d like to see continue.

Read: [CNN] and [Search Engine Journal]