In its letter to Congress, addressed to the likes of Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi, the alliance argued that the continued suppression of the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA)( allows “dominant firms” to “limit competition and restrict user choice” when accessing privacy-focused technologies and products.

Tech giants were currently forcing users into accepting their policies of “perpetual surveillance” because of their positions as “gatekeepers”, and of using their “influence in society” to steer users away from rival services more committed to privacy.

Signatories included the likes of DuckDuckGo, Proton, Brave and Mozilla, among others, representing sectors ranging from VPN and search to web browsers, office software, and more.

The letter to Congress fighting for the revival of the AICOA hit back at the idea that the US technology industry is a free market. The 13 signatories, all of which are relatively small in stature, and have little chance of bribing lobbying anyone in the US congress claim the tech giants deliberately wield the depth and breadth of their product portfolios to establish monopolies.

Google and Meta are all powerful in election year as the US bases its democracy on corporates buying elections with lobbying and whoever has the largest campaign fund at the end wins.

This means that the economic interests of corporations have often taken precedence over the online privacy of the people that use their platforms. It is unlikely that the bill will be tabled for discussion before the November midterms. Afterwards it will softly and suddenly vanish away and never be met with again.