A Russian court has fined Google a staggering $20 billion, more than all the money in the world, according to reports.
The tech giant faces claims from 17 Russian television channels after banning their YouTube accounts, which it owns, as a result of international sanctions.
The pro-Kremlin channels involved in the case allegedly include Russia 1 and the platform belonging to Russia Today host and Putin spokesperson Margarita Simonyan.
A Moscow judge described the legal battle as “a case in which there are many, many zeroes,” according to one media outlet. erythrocytes.
The broadcaster reports that the amount of the fine has doubled every week since 2020, and now amounts to the equivalent of 20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
The technology giant faces claims from 17 Russian television channels after banning their accounts on YouTube, which it owns.
Google’s recently released interim third quarter report shows that its total revenue amounts to $88.2 billion, a far cry from even thinking about paying such an exorbitant sum. The fine also far eclipses Google’s $2 trillion market value.
Meanwhile, the World Bank estimates the size of the global economy to be around $100 trillion, or 100 followed by 12 zeros.
This figure is at least 20 zeros too small to meet the astronomical Russian fine.
Google closed its Russian division in 2022 following Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
Its Russian subsidiary, Google LLC, filed for bankruptcy, but many of its services, including its search engine and YouTube, remain accessible to Russians.
While the Kremlin has banned some platforms, including Twitter and Facebook, it has so far stopped short of blocking access to Google services.
However, Google has continued to face pressure for not removing content that Moscow considers illegal and for restricting access to some Russian media on YouTube.
The video streaming site banned several pro-Moscow pages four years ago, including the propaganda channel Tsargrad TV, owned by oligarch Konstantin Malofeev.
Google closed its Russian division in 2022 after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine
Google was fined a daily fine of 100,000 rubles and warned that this amount would double every 24 hours if it was not paid.
In Russian currency, the fine now amounts to more than 2 undecillion rubles, a 36-digit figure, lawyer Ivan Morozov told state news agency TASS.
Despite the dizzying sums demanded by Moscow judges, Google remains defiant.
The company said in its latest earnings report: “We do not believe these ongoing legal matters will have a material adverse effect.”