United States of Google

Om Malik, one of online’s star reporters, finds that Google is buying up lots of fiber and he wonders why. Could it be:

What if Google (GOOG) wanted to give Wi-Fi access to everyone in America? And what if it had technology capable of targeting advertising to a user’s precise location? The gatekeeper of the world’s information could become one of the globe’s biggest Internet providers and one of its most powerful ad sellers, basically supplanting telecoms in one fell swoop.

Not to mention newspapers.

Put this in your time capsule: Within a decade, if they don’t screw up (which is quite possible, especially if the stay as cocky as they’ve become), we’ll be seeing suits and hearings to break up the Google monopoly. The Googlopoly.