'Personalization' and 'collaborative' are, at least in my mind, quite a bit different. The first filters based on your preferences, the second filters based on everyone elses preferences. Even grouping you with 'like-minded' people would have to yield different results from a system trained on your personal preferences. True personalization, done right, would also make it significantly more difficult for advertisers and those hawking spam and using clickbait tactics to game the system. Why should a million sock puppet accounts or the masses clicking on 'You won't believe number 7!' get such content presented to me?
Wait, Google News has personalization? What I knew was that we could add some custom topics based on keywords.
You can switch editions, add and remove sections (not interested in world or sports, interested in a particular sports team) and there is also "suggested for you". Not sure how it suggests, though it seems to work well.