If we said Google News has added comments, you’d probably say “finally”. In fact they are adding comments, but with a twist: the US version is letting people or organizations who are part of a news story add comments to it.
Here’s how it works: if you search for your company or name and find stories, you can send an email to news-comments@google.com. Include your comment and contact details, plus a way to verify that you’re from that company - owning the email address me@relevantcompany.com may be enough (you need to reply to a mail sent there, not just spoof it - see the help section for more info). If approved by Google, your comment will appear beneath the story like this.
I suspect this could put Google in the dangerous role of being a human editor: who decides what comments get published? Are ill-informed rants acceptable? What about propaganda? Could be very tricky indeed.
