A Russian court has fined Google an unbelievable amount of $20 decillion, which is more money than exists in the world. This fine is related to claims from 17 Russian TV channels that Google banned their accounts on YouTube due to international sanctions.
Some of the channels involved are pro-Kremlin, including Russia 1 and a channel run by Margarita Simonyan, who supports President Putin. A judge in Moscow said the case involves “many, many zeros” when discussing the fine.
The fine has doubled every week since 2020, reaching this astronomical amount. In comparison, Google reported earnings of $88.2 billion recently, which is far less than the fine. The fine is also much larger than Google’s total market value of $2 trillion.
To put it in perspective, the World Bank estimates the global economy is about $100 trillion, which is still not enough to cover the fine.
Google closed its Russian office in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine, and its Russian branch went bankrupt. However, many of its services, like its search engine and YouTube, are still available in Russia. Although the Kremlin has blocked some platforms like Twitter and Facebook, it hasn’t blocked Google yet.
Google has faced pressure for not removing content that Russia considers illegal and for limiting access to some Russian media on YouTube. The company banned several pro-Moscow channels, including Tsargrad TV, four years ago.
Currently, Google is facing a daily fine of 100,000 rubles, which will double every day until it’s paid. This fine has now reached more than 2 undecillion rubles, which is a 36-digit number.
Despite the enormous fines being demanded, Google remains defiant, stating that they don’t believe these legal issues will significantly impact them. It’s also unlikely that Google will ever face a fine as high as a googol, which is an incredibly large number with one hundred zeros.
