How Google Is Preparing to Make Ad Tech Unit Independent

Less than a month from now, a federal court in Virginia will begin hearing an antitrust case that could determine whether Google has to spin off part of its advertising tech business into an independent company. But Google isn’t waiting for the decision to help that group become a more viable stand-alone business.

Last month, for example, Google staff in the part of the ad tech group that the court ruling could affect—Google Ad Manager, a unit that helps web publishers sell ads on their sites—organized a dinner in New York for the largest advertising agencies, according to two people who attended. At the dinner, the Google staffers asked agency employees how they could work together, which surprised and puzzled the agency employees because they were accustomed to dealing with another part of Google that helps agencies buy ads.