Russian court’s $20 decillion fine against Google exceeds world’s total assets

U.S. tech giant Google has closed up shop in Russia, but that hasn’t stopped a court there from levelling it with a fine greater than all the wealth in the world – a figure that is growing every day.

The fine, imposed after certain channels were blocked on YouTube, which Google owns, has reached more than 2 undecillion rubles, Russian business newspaper RBC reported this week. That’s about $20 decillion – a two followed by 34 zeros.

The fine is significantly more money than the combined total global net wealth of $477 trillion, according to Boston Consulting Group, and the worldwide gross domestic product last year of about $105 trillion, according to the World Bank.

Google’s parent company Alphabet – one of the five most valuable companies in the world – is valued at about $2 trillion, about 10 billion trillion times smaller than the fine.

In a case of verbal symmetry, the penalty could soon reach a googol, a 1 followed by 100 zeros, the mathematical term that inspired the name of the search engine.

Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary for Russian President Vladimir Putin, told reporters on Thursday the figure was symbolic and should be a reason for Google to pay attention to the Moscow Arbitration Court’s order to restore access to the YouTube channels.

“I actually can’t even pronounce that number,” Peskov said. “Rather, this sum is filled with symbolism. These demands demonstrate the essence of our channels’ grievances against Google.”

Google did not respond to a request for comment.

The sum grew so large because the fine increases with time in noncompliance, with no upper limit. The order was made after 17 blocked channels joined a lawsuit against Google’s American, Irish and Russian-based companies, according to RBC. The lawsuit predates Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and was initiated in 2020 by a channel that YouTube blocked to comply with U.S. sanctions.

But the invasion escalated hostilities between Russian authorities and Western social media platforms. Google’s Russian subsidiary filed for bankruptcy in 2022 after its assets were seized in response to fines.

YouTube and other platforms blocked some Russian media to viewers outside of the country in response to the war. The platform banned more than 3,000 channels this year linked to pro-invasion voices including Russian celebrities, according to Google’s Threat Analysis Group.

Russia’s media regulator and censor, Roskomnadzor, has repeatedly ordered Google to unblock particular YouTube accounts. Roskomnadzor has also fined Google for failing to remove YouTube content, such as videos uploaded by Ukrainian groups.

However, YouTube continued to be accessible in Russia after other Western social media platforms were blocked following the invasion of Ukraine. But in recent months users say the platform has dramatically slowed or ceased loading videos altogether, which experts told The Washington Post was probably linked to state censorship, though Russia blamed Google for the problem.

– Natalia Abbakumova contributed to this report.

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