HOWZAT

It has also been suggested that Google could be setting itself up as an ombudsman that implicitly carries judgment over media coverage, a role that some newspaper staff are likely to take issue with.

Comments will only be accepted from "those people or organisations who were actual participants in the story in question”, Google said.

A spokesman added that "actual paticipants" would likely be limited to parties named in a story. A concerned member of the public commenting on a recall of a dangerous product, for example, would not be classed as a "participant", she said.

A journalist would be able to comment on a story they had written, possibly to answer a comment already on the Google site,she said.

She added: "The vision behind Google News was to provide a wide spectrum of views on the news; we feel this experimental feature is in line with that."

Google is "not interested in setting up a newsroom or hiring journalists", she said, but went on to admit that the company would take on an "editorial" role in ensuring that comments conform to a set of terms and conditions that would block unsuitable material.

Google has so far always insisted that its News service, which uses complex algorithms to choose stories automatically, runs with the minimal amount of human involvement possible in its editorial process.

The company referenced the YouTube terms as a model of what would be allowed in the new service.

Google was not able to comment immediately on what safeguards would be in place to prevent defamatory comments appearing - a potential pitfall for its "experimental" tool.

The service was launched in the US this week.

A blog post by Dan Meredith and Andy Golding, software engineers on Google’s News Team, on the official Google site, announced “a new, experimental feature” that will display “reader comments on stories in Google News”.

They added: “Our long-term vision is that any participant will be able to send in their comments, and we'll show them next to the articles about the story.”

Comments will be published in full, without any edits, but marked as "comments" so readers know it is the individual's perspective, rather than part of a journalist's report.

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