Free markets don't require perfect information, I'm not sure where you came up with that. Perfect information is an assumption used in general equilibrium model

Free markets don't require perfect information, I'm not sure where you came up with that. Perfect information is an assumption used in general equilibrium models, that's really it. I think you might have meant perfect competition. Free markets don't need perfect competition, either. That's just a neoclassical assumption, again for modeling convenience.