Superbloom:
And during the contentious 1876 presidential election, the company leaked sensitive dispatches to the campaign of its preferred candidate, the probusiness Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. "Hayes might never have been president but for the fact that Western Union provided secret access to the telegrams sent by his rivals," writes Columbia law professor Tim Wu." To the press and the public, such abuses, when they came to light, underscored the need for legislators and judges to act to protect telegraphic communication.
We’ve totes learned from this and now would never allow private business to dominate a communication medium.