The Chinese Writers Association posted a copy of the Google statement on its Web site on Sunday. On the same day Erik Hartmann, an Asia-Pacific representative of Google Books, delivered the apology in a news program aired by China’s state broadcaster.

China is one of several countries, including the U.S. and France, where Google’s digital library program has faced legal challenges. The apology comes after the Chinese group demanded that Google compensate local authors whose works the U.S. search giant scanned without their approval.

Google is scanning hundreds of thousands of books, often without prior permission from their rights holders, so they can be searched and previewed on the Google Books service.

Google acknowledged in the statement that it had scanned books by Chinese writers and said the company would no longer do so without local authors’ permission. It also said it hopes to reach a general agreement over resolving the tensions by March and to sign a final agreement in the second quarter.

“Due to different starting notions and different understandings of the copyright law systems in China and the U.S., our behavior has caused discontent among Chinese writers,” the statement said. “Our communication with Chinese authors has not been good enough. Google is willing to apologize to Chinese authors for this behavior.”

Google has held talks with a local copyright protection group over the book service. One Chinese author, Shanghai-based Mian Mian, has brought a copyright infringement lawsuit against Google for scanning her novel Acid Lover and showing portions of it online.

A Google spokeswoman said Google Books complies with U.S. and Chinese law and that the company only shows snippets of copyright books for which it does not have permission from rights holders. Authors and publishers can choose to exclude their works from the service, she said.

1. Configure your Wi-Fi device to not automatically connect to an open network without your approval. By doing so, you’ll be aware when you’re connecting to an open Wi-Fi hotspot. “Many devices either come out of the box or are later configured to automatically accept any available Wi-Fi connection,” Figueroa says. Auto-configuration is most popular on handsets and some consumer electronics products like gaming devices.

2. If there’s a storage device or another PC on your home network, you may have sharing enabled on the laptop you’ve brought to the airport. “When you’re connecting to a public hotspot, make sure that you disable sharing,” says Figueroa.

3. If you’re conducting business or sharing sensitive information, it’s best to use a virtual private network (VPN), which creates an encrypted, private link across a public network.

4. Use a personal firewall, either the one that came with your Mac or Windows PC, or a third-party app from a reputable security vendor like Symantec. Firewalls come with a range of configurations. “You can configure a firewall that is somewhat impermeable, and then there are times you can have it pretty open,” Figueroa says. “At a minimum, you’ll want to know when an incoming connection is attempting to gain access to your system.”

5. Should you pay bills and shop online at a hotspot? Well, it’s probably not the smartest idea. If you must, however, “it would be best to do these types of transactions over a VPN connection,” Figueroa says. At the very least, use a hotspot that has WPA2 security. Not every public hotspot offers WPA2, though.