Google fined $20 decillion by Russia for blocking state media channels on YouTube

Google fined in Russia: A Russian court has levied a fine of two undecillion Rubles -- a two followed by 36 zeros -- on Google for blocking a host of state media channels. In Dollars, that figure translates to $2 decillion or $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

Despite being one of the most profitable companies in the world, this sum is significantly large for a company that has a market cap of $2.12 trillion. For reference, this number if larger that the collective GDP of the world, which the International Monetary Fund estimates to be around $110 trillion – a figure with just 13 zeros.

What's more? As per reports, this fine is expected to increase if Google fails to make the payment within a period of nine months. Russian media outlet RBC reports that if Google fails to pay the fine within nine months, it will be fined 100,000 rubles or $1,000 (approximately) for every day of non-compliance. This number will double every week with no limit on the fine.

Google fined in Russia: Why the fine?

Google's tussle with Russia started back in August 2020 when Google was sued by 17 Russian media companies for blocking the accounts of Tsargrad TV channel and RIA FAN on YouTube. Then almost a year later in the spring of 2021, the Russian court ordered Google to return Tsargrad TV channel's access to the blocked accounts on YouTube while threatening to fine the company if the decision was not complied with.

This was followed by YouTube blocking the accounts of Sputnik, NTV, Russia 24, RT, and other Russian state channel after the Russia - Ukraine war began in February 2022. The same year, Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service or FAS accused Google of violation of the country's Law on Protection of Competition and abusing its dominance in the country. FAS initially demanded a fine of 2 billion roubles. A year later, a Russian court increased this fine to 4 billion roubles for failing to pay the earlier fine.

In the same year, that is, 2022, Google's subsidiary in the country was declared bankrupt and the company stopped offering its commercial services, including advertising, in Russia.