A Russian court has fined Google two undecillion roubles, the American tech firm for restricting its ban on pro-Kremlin propaganda. This is roughly equivalent to five hundred forty-one nonillion, six hundred seventy-nine octillion U.S. dollars.
Seems like your mathematics failed here. In simple words, it is a two followed by 36 zeroes and it’s more than the entire world’s GDP. It is even times than Google’s market value which is 2 trillion dollars.
BBC reported that the Russian court fined Google $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 for restricting 17 Russian state media channels on YouTube.
The Kremlin has said that Russia’s huge fines imposed on Google were largely symbolic and designed to force the US tech company into lifting restrictions on Russian YouTube channels.
“I can’t even pronounce this number, but it is more likely imbued with symbolism,” the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told Russian news agencies.
“Google should not restrict the actions of our broadcasters, but it does. This should be a reason for Google’s management to pay attention to this and correct the situation,” he further added.
The escalating conflict between Russian authorities and Google began in 2020 but intensified after the invasion of Ukraine. Google has blocked over a thousand Russian channels and millions of videos, including state-funded media, as part of its response to geopolitical tensions.
The fines against Google have compounded rapidly; according to reports, this fine doubles daily if it’s not paid within 9 months. This situation is further complicated by Google’s previous fines and its decision to cease commercial operations in Russia while still allowing access to its products.
Kermelin told NBC News the fine total is the amount demanded by 17 Russian TV channels and other media outlets whose content is blocked from YouTube, which is owned by Google parent Alphabet.
Since it began its invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Russia has slapped massive fines on social media companies accused of hosting any content that is critical of the Kremlin or pro-Ukraine.
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