> How is gossiping about a neighbor's debt morally different than a credit reporting agency? The problem with this example of gossip (and most gossip, IMO) isn

> How is gossiping about a neighbor's debt morally different than a credit reporting agency? The problem with this example of gossip (and most gossip, IMO) isn't spreading information about creditworthiness. It's that gossip is unreliable, subject to inaccuracy, has a transmission medium that isn't content-neutral (ie lurid things get spread more often and content gets exaggerated), has no real recourse for the subjects of inaccuracies, doesn't have codified limits on content, etc etc etc. It's a very flawed method of information transmission, even when the transmission of that information is broadly good for society. I think the credit reporting system as it stands is a huge mess, but there's value in knowing a potential debtor's creditworthiness, and more importantly, the reporting system substantially mitigates most of the issues described above by operationalizing the process. A random person can't easily "start a rumor" about someone's credit history, you can view your report and dispute it, the agencies don't randomly add to the size of your reported debt because it makes a better story, they don't randomly report on things outside of their narrow purview, etc. > How is a mining company giving a bag of cash to a provincial governor morally different from campaign contributions from lobbyists? No real disagreement here...