Google has been fined by Russia for removing Russian television channels on YouTube. As legal battles against this tech giant unfold in Russia, the fine amount has inflated to unimaginable levels over the past four years.
According to a report by the Russian state media TASS this week, lawyer Ivan Morozov stated that the violation has led to the tech giant facing a fine of 2 undecillion rubles, equivalent to 20 decillion dollars.
This figure far surpasses the global economy’s scale. Based on data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is only around 110 trillion dollars.
Another expert, Roman Yankovsky from the Higher School of Economics Institute of Education, told TASS that Google “obviously will not pay this fine, and the Russian Federation cannot recover this money from the company.”
The market value of Google’s holding company, Alphabet, is slightly over 2 trillion dollars, despite generating revenue of 805.4 billion dollars (739.6 billion euros) in the previous quarter.
Earlier, a Russian court had ordered Google to restore the blocked channels on YouTube, some of which have been banned since 2022, or face doubling fines every week.
In a call with reporters on Thursday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov admitted that he “doesn’t even know how to correctly pronounce this (fine) number,” but stated that this astounding amount “carries symbolic meaning.”
He added that Google “should not restrict the behavior of our broadcasting companies on its platform.”
Any claims made by the Russian government are only valid within its borders.
CNN reached out to Google for comment. In the quarterly earnings report released this week, Google stated that the ongoing legal disputes, including civil judgments with compound fines for terminating accounts (including sanctioned accounts), are not expected to have a significant adverse impact on earnings.
Following the widespread invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Google has reduced its business operations in the country but hasn’t completely withdrawn, in contrast to several other American tech companies. Many of its services, including the search engine and YouTube, are still available in Russia.
Several months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Google’s Russian subsidiary filed for bankruptcy and suspended most commercial operations after the government took over its bank accounts.