Russia fined Google more than Earth's entire GDP for a Millennium

Russia has fined Google for not reinstating Russian TV channels that were blocked on YouTube, an absurd amount of money. We’re talking about $20 decillion US dollars. That’s a two followed by 34 zeros, or $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. That’s a lot of money. In fact, it’s more than the GDP of the entire planet for a millennium.

This fine has been accruing since 2020, when Russian outlets, including Tsargard TV and RIA FAN, sued Google for blocking their content. Since then, the penalty has continued to grow as 15 other channels, including Kremlin-backed networks, have won court cases against Google.

Google has gone years without paying the fine, so its unlikely that Google will open the checkbook now. Obviously, Google couldn’t cover the bill even if it wanted to. Google and its parent company Alphabet, only have a market capitalization of $2 trillion, which is only a fraction of this fine.

The fine is doubling every week that Google doesn’t pay

According to RBC-Ukraine, the court’s fine is doubling every week that Google fails to pay it. Which means that it would take about 219 weeks before Google owes $1 googol (that’s one followed by 100 zeros).

Obviously, this fine is pretty unrealistic; the court cases from the Russian TV channels have had real consequences for Google. It’s subsidiary had to file bankruptcy in 2022 after courts seized more than $100 million in assets from its Russian Accounts. And Google has countersued several of these outlets to prevent them from pursuing the company’s assets in other countries.

The block of Tsargrad TV’s YouTube channel came in 2020 after the US sanctioned its own Konstantin Maolfeyev, a Russian oligarch who the DOJ said was instrumental in the country’s 2014 and 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Since then, YouTube has blocked hundreds of channels affiliated with Russia-owned news outlets like RT to comply with the sanctions from the US Government.

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