China Peeks Behind the Curtain at Alibaba, ByteDance and Tencent

(Bloomberg) — China’s internet giants from Tencent Holdings Ltd. to ByteDance Ltd. shared details of their prized algorithms with Beijing for the first time, an unprecedented move aimed at curbing data abuse that may end up compromising closely guarded corporate secrets.

The internet watchdog published a list (link in Chinese) Friday describing 30 algorithms that enterprises including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Meituan employ to gather data on users, tailor personal recommendations and serve up content. While the public list stopped short of revealing the actual code, it wasn’t clear the extent to which internet businesses may have revealed their underlying software to regulators in private.