Only a decade ago, laughing while scrolling past poorly targeted online ads was a regular occurrence for those of us who got our daily news fix online. As a rule, we were skeptical of any company’s ability to read our minds and serve ads we actually cared about. Today, the ads chasing us across platforms are eerily on the nose.

That increase in precision tracks with the meteoric rise of Google’s ad exchange platform and its slow creep into every aspect of the online experience. Google isn’t the only company serving paid content, but it might as well be: Its publisher ad server Google Ad Manager dominates more than 90% of the market and manages its relationships with both customers and competitors with an iron fist.