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  • Google Play will allow you to exclude specific apps from influence recommendations.
  • Personalization in Play gives users control over app discovery.
  • Excluded apps may take a full 24 hours before they stop impacting what you see.

Whether we’re talking about app stores or streaming services, the idea of discovery is absolutely key to a good user experience; you want your users not just to find stuff they’re explicitly searching for but steered in the direction of content they may have never even heard of before, but your algorithm thinks they’ll like. When that works well, it’s awesome and keeps us feeling engaged and satisfied. But it can also be something that’s perilously easy to start moving in the wrong direction. For example, have you ever babysit a younger relative, only to find that your YouTube suggestions are all Bluey clips now? Google’s cooked up a simple fix for just this problem, and it’s coming to the Play Store.

Google’s bringing the Play Store a new Personalization in Play menu and checking out the settings there presents users with the option to individually prevent certain apps from influencing Google’s recommendations.