The auction for the smoldering remains of RadioShack is happening right now at the offices of the company’s attorneys in New York City, and something caught our attention while we wait for news about the winning bidders and future of the Shack and its stores and employees. AT&T has filed an objection to the proceedings in court, asking RadioShack to destroy any sensitive information about customers and AT&T itself.

RadioShack, of course, sold phones and service for all major wireless carriers. One possible result from today’s auction is that most of the remaining stores will become co-branded RadioShack and Sprint stores. Other wireless carriers or their authorized retailers could bid on parts of RadioShack as well, and AT&T really doesn’t want proprietary information, or (more importantly from our point of view) their customers’ information to end up in the hands of another company. The current agreement between RadioShack and AT&T has been in effect since 2005, and the telecom’s lawyers explained in their filing that “he AT&T protected information must be disposed of or transitioned properly and not provided or sold to third parties.”

So far we know that Standard General, a firm that holds a large amount of RadioShack’s debt, plans to bid for 1,723 of the stores, and GameStop will take over 160 leases. Those stores will most likely not be GameStop stores, but stores for their other brands that are actually growing: authorized resellers of AT&T, Cricket, and Apple products.

AT&T wants its customer info destroyed or returned before RadioShack sale [Dallas Morning News]

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