FACEBOOK has been accused of “harvesting” its 800m users’ personal information and sending it on to advertisers – regardless of their privacy settings.

The social network rejects the allegation but is no stranger to criticism around the use of personal data.

In my experience, the criticism tends to be overstated and isn’t necessarily justified.

Online target advertising isn’t as complicated or intrusive as some media reporting would have you believe.

Online advertisers fill out a form choosing to target their ads at certain groups – e.g. specifying engaged women under the age of 35 who live within 10 miles of Liverpool who often post about weddings.

Facebook then serves up this advertisement on the right hand side bar of the Facebook page of relevant users who meet the criteria. In this case would most likely be adverts for wedding dress makers or photographers in Merseyside.

Done this way, the advertisers only receive anonymous aggregated data, not personal information.

Facebook's privacy issues are just part of a wider debate about terms and conditions attached to social networks.

These tend to be long and difficult to understand. Most people will not read them and don’t know what rights the social network asserts over the information shared on these sites.

To my mind, introducing straightforward, readable terms and conditions and privacy policies will alleviate the risk of a network becoming the next target of an online campaign by privacy activists.

But it is also down to the user to read the policies of the site if they are concerned about their data.

Terms and conditions are there to protect the operator of the social network. By agreeing to them, users agree to legally binding copyright licensing and data protection policies.

The user who skips over these without reading them may find they have given up more control over their data than they would like.

JON BLOOR is head of business law at Lees Solicitors