Back when I was still in church, there was a culture of not gossiping about others since it was biblically discouraged. However, the definition of gossiping is sometimes semantically misused and labelled. Gossiping involves idle talk about the personal or private matters of a person/subject. It is intended as a means of sharing views and perspectives, but it also introduces great risk of misinformation and rumour-mongering within the conversation. That said and done, my anthropological self beliefs that gossiping does have benefits for social groups.
How about when you start hearing stuff about a close friend? To me, I will be more appalled that the close friend doesn't trust me enough to tell me such stuff rather than the degree of disgust, embarassment or sheer evil that the secret might be attached to. Is that gossiping? It's not like the primary intention was to spread the information, rather to objectively discuss the matter and to always admit to each other that there are subjective views imposed all the time.
I never talk bad about a person, and when I discuss a person's flaws, I tend to see it as a part of the growing process or a whimsical part of the personality (maybe I'm just being diplomatic, but it really works in the long run for both them and your sanity/conscience). I also always talk more about their strengths as much as I can.
What if you hear comments about yourself made by your close friends? It sometimes hurt to know that your friends are shallow, but again, the hurt comes from a lack of trust. I can take the truth even if it hurts, as long as you support me and help me grow.
So I guess gossiping is about the intent (or I so want to believe).
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