c|net's News Blog, is reporting that in the U.S. version of Google News, a user who is somehow involved in a story will now be able to comment on it. There is a verification process that involves submitting your comment and credentials to a special e-mail address, and verifying your identity via domain name, the process concludes with a follow-up from Google staff. The idea is to limit the commenting to the experts involved in the story. It's an interesting idea but apparently not a novel one as Yahoo! tried a similar system but abandoned the idea, at least temporarily. It seems that Yahoo! didn't keep as a tight reign on things and suffered from comment spam. Here is an example as cited by News Blog.
