Google is in final negotiations to acquire Digg, according to TechCrunch. Such an acquisition by Google has been speculated earlier but has generally been denied by both parties in question. TechCrunch's sources, however, claim that the deal is close to done, and puts the acquisition price close to $200 million. This would bring Digg under the Google News domain. Interestingly, Microsoft, which was earlier interested in purchasing Digg itself, currently has a three year ad deal with Digg, and may pull out of the relationship if the sale to Google goes ahead.

All this does throw an interesting light at Google's experiments with a Digg-like interface for news -- Google clearly sees value in the model. We'll keep you updated on how this unfolds.