Internet giant Google has changed the tagline on the homepage of its Palestinian edition from "Palestinian Territories" to "Palestine".

The change, introduced on 1 May, means google.ps now displays "Palestine" in Arabic and English under Google's logo.

Using the word Palestine is controversial for some. Israeli policy is that the borders of a Palestinian state are yet to be agreed.

In November, the UN gave Palestine the status of "non-member observer state".

The decision by the General Assembly was strongly opposed by Israel and the United States. Previously, Palestine only had "observer entity" status.

It followed an unsuccessful Palestinian bid to join the international body as a full member state in 2011 because of a lack of support in the UN Security Council.

Palestinians in general seek recognition for the state they are trying to establish and the adoption of the name Palestine.

Israel considers any formal use of the word Palestine as pre-judging the outcome of currently stalled peace talks. In much of Israel's official terminology the West Bank is referred to as Judea and Samaria.

'Right direction'

In a statement given to the BBC on Friday, Google spokesman Nathan Tyler said: "We're changing the name 'Palestinian Territories' to 'Palestine' across our products. We consult a number of sources and authorities when naming countries.

"In this case, we are following the lead of the UN, Icann [the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers], ISO [International Organisation for Standardisation] and other international organisations."

The Palestinian Authority (PA) welcomed Google's decision.

"This is a step in the right direction, a timely step and one that encourages others to join in and give the right definition and name for Palestine instead of Palestinian territories," Dr Sabri Saidam, advisor to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, told the BBC.

"Most of the traffic that happens now happens in the virtual world and this means putting Palestine on the virtual map as well as on the geographic maps," he added.

Dr Saidam said that since the UN vote on 29 November, the PA had written to international companies, including Google, asking them to replace their usage of "Palestinian Territories" with "Palestine".

Google has assembled a team to spot critical bugs and vulnerabilities - and taken on one of the world's most notorious hackers as an intern.

George Hotz, 24, is best known for hacking Sony's PlayStation 3 and Apple's iPhone, actions that have seen him subject to legal action.

Mr Hotz is part of Google's Project Zero, a new effort to identify problems within any software, not just Google's.

A public database of vulnerabilities will be published by the company.

It will give information on how long it took companies to react to the bug report and issue a fix.

"Once the bug report becomes public (typically once a patch is available), you'll be able to monitor vendor time-to-fix performance, see any discussion about exploitability, and view historical exploits and crash traces," explained Chris Evans, the Google employee heading the project.

The "well-staffed" team will focus on finding so-called zero-day vulnerabilities. This is the term given to problems with software that had not previously been identified, meaning hackers have the chance to exploit a bug fully before it is patched - fixed - by developers. 

"You should be able to use the web without fear that a criminal or state-sponsored actor is exploiting software bugs to infect your computer, steal secrets or monitor your communications," Mr Evans continued.

"Yet in sophisticated attacks, we see the use of 'zero-day' vulnerabilities to target, for example, human rights activists or to conduct industrial espionage. This needs to stop.

"We think more can be done to tackle this problem."

Part of that effort requires bringing on the types of people that were previously the object of technology firms' ire.

Mr Hotz - known as geohot online - was taken to court by Sony after he hacked the PlayStation 3 so it could play pirated games.

The case was settled out of court, with Mr Hotz agreeing to not target Sony products in future.

Google also felt the sharp end of Mr Hotz's hacking ability - he was able to hack the firm's Chrome operating system.

In contrast to the Sony lawsuit, Mr Hotz was awarded a $150,000 (£88,000) prize as part of a competition arranged by manufacturer HP.

"I think what we've seen in the past 18-24 months is a change in attitude from a lot of companies on how to handle vulnerabilities in their applications," said security expert Brian Honan, who noted that Mr Hotz had also worked for Facebook.

"We've seen Google be very proactive in this, but other companies like Facebook and Microsoft all have 'bug bounty' programmes whereby you can report a bug and be financially compensated."

Mr Honan did not think that Google calling out other firms on security would backfire.

"Other companies may begrudgingly accept Google reporting a vulnerability," he said.

"But at the same time, most companies do now have a progressive attitude to receiving reports - I don't see them looking at Google in a negative way."