In what could be called a thinly veiled attempt to shine up its image, Google is offering holiday travelers free Wi-Fi at approximately 47 U.S. airports from now until January 15, 2010. Make sure your employees are protected.There's no denying that this is a nice gesture. Though many of the nation's airports are offering free Wi-Fi in some areas, the weary business traveler finds all too often that the Wi-Fi at airports comes at a price. Google is hoping to make the holiday travel season easier on everyone by offering free Wi-Fi at about 47 airports across the country.

Some of the airports include: Las Vegas, San Jose, Boston, Baltimore, Burbank, Houston, Indianapolis, Seattle, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, St. Louis and Charlotte. As an added bonus, travelers that pass through the Burbank and Seattle airports will be happy to know that those airports will be offering free Wi-Fi forever.

The Wi-Fi services are being provided via a partnership that Google has struck with Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, Airport Marketing Income and others. On log-in, users will have an opportunity to make a donation to Engineers Without Borders organization, which will be matched by Google. The donation is optional. As part of the promotion, all passengers on Virgin America flights will have free in-flight Wi-Fi. Nice!

With all this free Internet access being offered, don't lose sight of the fact that your employees (and enterprise data) needs to be protected. Make sure users have up-to-date virus and malware protection, secure log-ins, and use VPNs if at all possible. That goes for employee smartphones, as well.

More information is available from Google here.