State officials are striving to collect millions of dollars in form of sales tax owed by residents who buy books, music and other products online.

Amazon. com on Monday filed a law suit in a view to prohibit North Carolina from accumulating personal information about customers and their purchases of above 50 million products since 2003.

It posts that divulging buyers' names would pose a negative impact on customers who may have purchased controversial books or movies and would reduce the future sales.

"Each order of a book, movie, CD or other expressive work potentially reveals an intimate fact about an Amazon customer," Amazon wrote.

In a complaint filed in federal court in Seattle, Amazon posted that a request from the N. C. Department of Revenue would breach the First Amendment rights of its customers to a great extent.

In addition, it added that it already facilitates North Carolina information in relation to how much state residents spend on its site.

However, a spokeswoman for the state Revenue Department gave no immediate details Tuesday. Revenue Secretary Kenneth Lay was named in the lawsuit, however, was not immediately available for comment.