(BEIJING) Chinese digital giants including Tencent, Alibaba and ByteDance have handed over details of their algorithms to authorities, an unprecedented move in Beijing’s takeover of the sector, the regulator said.
Posted yesterday at 7:04 am
At the heart of the digital economy, algorithms act as the brains of many applications and services on the Internet, and are usually a well-kept secret of digital giants.
These tools make it possible to analyze the quantities of information collected on the user and automatically make recommendations to him according to his habits or preferences.
Officials, worried about the digital giants’ obfuscation against these practices, want more control over algorithms.
The March provision requires companies to check with the regulator on compliance of their algorithms and provide technical details.
On Friday, China’s Cyberspace Administration released a list detailing how tech giants use algorithms for the first time.
E-commerce champion Alibaba, for example, recommends new products based on its users’ browsing and search history.
Small video app Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok) makes suggestions based on the amount of time its users have spent on previous content.
“At this stage, the authorities have not explicitly asked the companies to modify their algorithms,” Angela Zhang, a Chinese law specialist at the University of Hong Kong, told AFP.
“Regulators are in a much more information-gathering phase,” says Mme Zhang.
Chinese authorities have been particularly vocal against the tech sector for nearly two years, for practices that have so far been tolerated and widespread.
Many of the behemoths in this field are specialized in terms of personal data, competition and consumer rights.
Last month, Didi, China’s leader in driver-driven reservations (VTC), was fined around 1.2 billion euros for personal data breaches.
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