By now you’ve surely heard that Dave Goldberg “died suddenly.” He was the CEO of SurveyMonkey and the husband of Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook. What you haven’t heard is this: the cause of death. The family chose not to reveal it.

That decision led to a great deal of online speculation. It caused some postulate suicide while others thought it was a heart attack. On Twitter, theories ranged from the inane to the conspiratorial. Goldberg was well-known-ish but that doesn’t change the equation by which you should distribute information. It doesn’t matter if you’re a CEO or a working class joe. When you hoard information, you allow others to seize the narrative. If you know something, share it. Transparency is always best.

Sooner or later, the truth will be revealed. The New York Times now reports that Goldberg collapsed in a hotel gym. Efforts to revive him in both the gym and a hospital failed. Look, Your JoeDog would be embarrassed if he went out like that but that’s no reason for ambiguity. The JoeDog PR staff should let everyone know that a B-list open source douchebag died because his fitness level was lower than his ego level.

As for Dave Goldberg just remember he died doing what he loved best: wrecking your online experience with annoying pop-up surveys.