“There no point in being anonymous on Facebook,” Owen Van Natta, the company’s chief revenue officer, told Times Online yesterday.

Fair enough – but do the 40 million users of the site have a choice?

The company operates according to two “core principles”: “You should have control over your personal information …You should have access to the information others want to share.”

Two uncontroversial starting points. But the fine print of Facebook’s terms and conditions is raising eyebrows.

For instance:

“Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the Facebook service through the operation of the service (e.g., photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalised experience.”

To the layman, Facebook reserving the right to collect information about you from "other sources" may sound rather Orwellian. However, Alex Brown, a partner at Simmons & Simmons, the law firm, says he's "pretty sanguine" about the clause.

"What you see is Facebook reserving a general right to collect information, albeit in a clause that looks like its had the kitchen sink thrown at it," he says.

"That's not to say people don't have to be careful ... But, frankly, it's naive to think that sites like this are not going to gather and use information."

It's also true that Facebook is far from the only site that wants to know as much about its users as possible.

Take this, from the privacy terms of MySpace, which is owned by News International, parent company of The Times:

“MySpace.com also collects other profile data including but not limited to: personal interests, gender, age, education and occupation in order to assist users in finding and communicating with each other.

Times Recommends

• C&G axed - 1,660 jobs to be lost
• UK house prices rise 1.1% as buyers return
• Mixed reaction to US banks repaying bailouts