Indiana

"I advise everyone and practice it absolutely. I don't send anything I don't want public," said Mark Malven, leader of the technology transaction practice in the Bloomfield Hills office of Dykema Gossett P.L.L.C. "I don't put anything sensitive into an e-mail or a text message that I wouldn't want to see in the newspaper. Executives have come crashing to the ground. Companies get ruined."

Service providers say they erase text messages from their servers ? AT&T deletes messages after 72 hours, according to spokesperson Howard Riefs, and others do so in times ranging up to two weeks ? but you shouldn't rely on that, say industry professionals.