AT&T Wireless keeps all your Text Messages

After Kobe did the vertical shuffle with a hotel work, she text messaged 2 people — her previous boyfriend and a mystery person. We're curious what she said, but here's the real rub folks. The judge in the case is ordering AT&T Wireless to hand over all the messages. 

 

That's right. Apparently all cell phone carriers keep our text messages.  

"One of the false assumptions that people make is that when they hit the delete button, messages are gone forever, but nothing can be further from the truth," said Jeff Kagan, an independent telecommunications analyst in Atlanta.  

AT&T Wireless spokesperson Mark Siegel said the company co-operates with law enforcement officials for investigations but refused to discuss its policies on storing text messages. The company's website said messages not immediately delivered are held for 72 hours for more delivery attempts - then deleted. How messages in the Bryant case would be available four months later isn't known; most likely they were retrieved from an archival storage system. "It's just a common practice," said Kagan, the telecoms analyst. "I don't know an instance where they delete them. 

We just called At&T to see what they would say if we asked for our own text messages, but they had no clue what we were asking for put promised to call us back. We suspect they're just going to read our voice mail and text messages from now on. We kinda wonder if they read all these for some other purposes like promotions, marketing, etc…Tinfoil hat time.