Google wants to monetize its 3-year-old, 5% stake in AOL. Time Warner, the owner of AOL, stated Wednesday that it received a request from Google last week wishing to exercise its “demand registration statement” on the AOL stake. Time Warner’s choices are to take AOL public, buy back the stake, or delay a decision. Time Warner sold the AOL stake to Google in a 2005 transaction that valued AOL at $20-billion. Last month Google wrote down the value of the stake, implying that AOL is now valued at $5.5-billion.

Time Warner’s strategy to split AOL into a media and advertising business separate from its dial-up Internet access business has been weakened by a decline in advertising. AOL has seen a 20% decline in advertising in the first quarter. Time Warner is looking for ways to combine AOL with partners such as Yahoo and Microsoft in a bid to build a larger customer base or divest the unit.