A person needs to be very careful not to reveal the secret of his friend to anyone, and even if he commands the person not to reveal it further to others, his friend will also copy him and reveal to another on condition that they do not reveal to others, and in the end the rumor will be heard.
This applies not only if the friend told him to keep it a secret, when he definitely should not reveal it, but in any case where the friend has not said clearly “Go and tell!”, it is as if he told him not to say to others. Many times a person will be speaking to his friends and relatives and will not bother to tell them not to reveal it to others, and they will go and tell others outside about it, and bad things come out of it.
How much disparagement and bad things and prohibitions come to a person who digs and checks to know the secrets of others, by eavesdropping through the wall or trickery or opening letters, when the excommunication of anyone who opens letters of another person made by Rabbenu Gershom is well known. The Teshuvos Halachos Ketanos (Part one chapter 276) says that one who digs to find the secret of another transgresses the biblical prohibition of “You shall not go as a talebearer amongst your people!”, for there is no difference between revealing to others and revealing to oneself. It follows that one who guards his soul should keep far away from all of these, for they are all the abomination of Hashem and fortunate are those who walk in innocence.
