In an absurd legal decision, a Russian court has imposed a fine of $20 decillion on Google, the parent company of YouTube, for blocking content from state-affiliated media channels. That's $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, with a whopping 28 zeros. This astronomical sum, more than the combined wealth on Earth, arose from a four-year legal battle sparked after YouTube banned the ultra-nationalist Russian channel Tsargrad in 2020 in response to U.S. sanctions against its owner. The case escalated after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, with 17 additional media outlets, including Zvezda, a station owned by Russia’s Ministry of Defense, joining the lawsuit.
The fine was calculated by a court ruling under Article 13.41 of Russia’s Administrative Offenses Code, which requires companies to pay 100,000 rubles ($1,025) per day for removing certain channels, with the total doubling weekly. Thanks to compounding interest, the fine ballooned into an unfathomable number – so large that the court itself acknowledged it involved “many, many zeros.”
Google has been largely inactive in Russia since 2022, after Russian authorities seized its bank accounts, effectively closing its local operations. The company had more than 200 employees in Russia, some of whom were relocated or laid off.
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The tech giant has since expressed confidence that these legal matters, including Russia's attempts to seize assets globally, will not have a significant impact. In its latest earnings report, Alphabet downplayed the potential risks, stating, "We do not believe these ongoing legal matters will have a material adverse effect." Despite the staggering fine, Google’s quarterly revenue of $88 billion posted this week further underscores the relative insignificance of the Russian actions in the broader scope of its global business.
According to Russian News Agency TASS, Google can only return to the Russian market by complying with the court's decision to restore the blocked channels. The penalty's astronomical size underscores growing tensions between Western tech platforms and Russian authorities, who continue pursuing similar cases against companies that have largely withdrawn from the country following international sanctions.
[Image credit: conceptual drawing via Midjourney with modifications by Techlicious]
For the past 20+ years, Techlicious founder Suzanne Kantra has been exploring and writing about the world’s most exciting and important science and technology issues. Prior to Techlicious, Suzanne was the Technology Editor for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and the Senior Technology Editor for Popular Science. Suzanne has been featured on CNN, CBS, and NBC.
