[ksk]

That is not a good argument to make. The corollary is that the telecom companies "own" their infrastructure. They can modify any packets sent from your computer to theirs, insert tracking, or peek at it or whatever. After all, YOU sent the packet to them.

[codezero]

They actually do this. Adding unique identifiers to headers.

The U.S. Government also use the fact that telco owns the lines to justify mass surveillance since you are communicating on lines you don't own.

[marcosdumay]

Not to them, but through them.

I'm paying them to take that data, and deliver it verbatim to some other party.

They are reasonably free to refuse to take my money (they may have traded that freedom for some other gain, but then it's a different story), what they can't do is claim they are providing that service, while adulterating my data.

[ksk]

>Not to them, but through them.

To send it through them, you have to send it TO them. You know what I meant, lets not waste time on this.

> what they can't do is claim they are providing that service, while adulterating my data.

They can do anything they want, unless its against the law. (Or to be more specific, unless its proven in a court to be against the law).

The point is that we are relying on COMMONLY AGREED terms of what a service must provide. There is no explicit legal definition of what a routing service must do. The legal case, is not the same as the technical case.

I was replying to the person whose argument was - my computer, my rules. My point is the telecom can go - My router/infrastructure, my rules.