Google and Digg have reportedly signed a letter of intent following an on/off negotiation process which continued despite Google's cooling on the acquisition.
News of the likely deal surfaced after images appeared on websites last week suggesting that Google was experimenting with Digg-style voting methods as a means of aggregating search results.
Digg was launched in November 2004 by a group of young entrepreneurs in the US and is one of the best-known news aggregators. The service competes with other high profile community aggregators such as Slashdot and Reddit.
Should the acquisition go ahead it is likely that Digg's three-year advertising deal with Microsoft, which accounts for most of the company's revenue, would be terminated.