Chinese Internet shopping and auction website Taobao.com has formally announced that it will open its statistics to the public for the first time.

Taobao.com, according to local media reports, stated that the opening of its statistics will follow two major principles: first, the statistics will be provided hierarchically; and second, statistics that relate to privacy of individual consumers or enterprises will not be directly revealed. Taobao.com is a service of Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba.

Under these two principles, Taobao.com will offer its statistics at three levels: first, for macro statistics concerning the e-commerce industry and statistics that can show latest consumer trends, Taobao.com will offer free statistics; second, for business statistics referring to market situations of various industries and research on consumer behaviors, Taobao.com will sell that data; and third, for private statistics covering the privacy of individual consumers and enterprises, Taobao.com will not openly provide this data to third parties.

Taobao.com’s paid statistics can be subscribed to with an annual payment, but the company has not yet set the price for the service.

Compared with other e-commerce companies who also opened their statistics, Taobao.com said it will provide more content. Its opened statistics not only cover trading statistics, but also have statistics related to product standards and consumer research in China.