Chinese law confers a monopoly on the sale of food grade salt, reserving specific geographic regions for each salt producer. Apparently, online sales of table salt have had enough market impact that China National Salt Industry Corporation asked Taobao, China's larges online trading platform, for the ban. Taobao has notified salt sellers it will ban all sales unless a license is presented from the local salt authorities.

Other leading online shopping platforms, including Dangdang, 360buy and Yihaodian have already imposed similar bans.

The monopoly law requires all food salt to be iodized.