It seems Google will have a dark cloud of antitrust charges hanging over it for a few years at least. At a status hearing on Friday, US District Judge Amit Mehta said the Department of Justice's antitrust lawsuit against the company probably won't go to trial until 2023.
Both Google and the DOJ suggested that was "a likely timeline," according to CNBC. Mehta set September 12th of that year as a tentative start date. The trial could run for several weeks.
It's one of three antitrust lawsuits Google is currently facing in the US. The DOJ and 11 states filed suit against Google in October. The two others emerged just this week. One of them is led by Texas and has support from nine other attorneys general. It focuses on the company's ad tech.
A group of 38 attorneys general filed the other suit. It's similar to the DOJ case in that it accuses Google of maintaining its dominant market position in search and search advertising through anti-competitive behavior. In its response, the company said redesigning Google Search would "harm American consumers and businesses."