Executives from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd have taken their debate over the company's proposed initial public offering into cyberspace with dueling blog posts.

They're using the Web to state their positions on whether China's largest e-commerce company should be able to go public in the city while maintaining its special corporate structure.

Joe Tsai, co-founder and executive vice-chairman of Alibaba Group, mounted the first public defense of the company's governance structure - where a group of partners makes all key operating decisions - in a blog post at 11 pm on Thursday.