Big tech companies formed a coalition and lashed out at the federal government to curb the latter's surveillance programs that collect personal information of Web surfers, according to a report by the Associated Press.

The coalition of eight tech companies includes top Silicon Valley companies Apple Inc., AOL Inc., Facebook Inc., Google Inc., LinkedIn Corp., Microsoft Corp., Twitter Inc., and Yahoo! Inc. and sent an open letter addressed to the Obama administration, the report said. The open letter was published Monday, December 9, in major U.S. dailies and Reform Government Surveillance, a new website.

The companies, which have been competing against each other, found themselves together calling on the federal government to limit the potential damage of individual privacy invasion. CEOs and founders of top tech companies have expressed concern about the federal government's actions.

"Reports about government surveillance have shown there is a real need for greater disclosure and new limits on how governments collect information," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, on the Reform Government Surveillance website. "The US government should take this opportunity to lead this reform effort and make things right."

The companies, whose business operations are immersed in the lives of users, are pushing for tighter controls over what it calls electronic espionage by the National Security Agency (NSA).

"The security of users' data is critical, which is why we've invested so much in encryption and fight for transparency around government requests for information," Google CEO Larry Page said on the Reform Government Surveillance website. "This is undermined by the apparent wholesale collection of data, in secret and without independent oversight, by many governments around the world. It's time for reform and we urge the US government to lead the way."

The coalition's offensive is a result of documents leaked by Edward Snowden, former NSA analyst and contract, the report said. The leaked documents show that the NSA has been collecting emails and other personal data from major tech companies under secret court orders. Snowden's whistleblowing has shown that this practice has been going on for the past five years by hacking into the companies' data centers.