Google is attempting to hammer out a record-setting $22.5 million settlement offer to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over charges that the sultan of search effectively sidestepped privacy settings in Apple's Safari browser. If agreed upon, the $22.5 million settlement would be the largest fine ever handed out to a single entity by the FTC, which has ramped up efforts to ensure rights of online users aren't violated.

Good old Uncle Sam can be awfully nosy when he wants to be. The U.S. government poking its head into personal affairs isn't news to most, but it is reiterated by Twitter's first ever transparency report, which was released on Monday just two days ahead of July 4th, otherwise known as Independence Day in the States. Not by coincidence, Twitter notes "July 4th serves an important reminder of the need to hold governments responsible, especially on behalf of those who may not have a chance to do so themselves." Let the fireworks begin.

The Internet community is obsessed with cats, so if you're going to build a neural network consisting of 16,000 computer processors designed to simulate the human brain, then what better task is there than to have it scour the Web for felines? Researchers from Google's X laboratory saw the logic in doing exactly that, and remarkably, the massive neural network actually taught itself to recognize the Internet's favorite type of furball with surprising accuracy.

The Internet may have forever changed the way information is shared and consumed, but what hasn't changed is the fact that government agencies around the globe go to great efforts to censor certain data. Google, which now discloses government requests to remove certain links and YouTube videos, says that what it's seen over the past two years has been nothing short of "troubling."