A court in Russia has ordered Google to pay an astronomical amount of money for blocking several media outlets. As per reports, the court on Monday fined Google 2 undecillion Rubles, or around 20 decillion USD.
Notably, 1 undecillion has 36 zeros after 1, while 1 decillion has 33 zeros after 1. This means, Google has been asked to pay USD 20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. This amount not only exceeds Google parent Alphabet’s market value, but it also exceeds the total GDP of the entire world, estimated to be around $100 trillion.
The ruling came after a four-year-long court battle against Google after it banned several Russian media outlets. This included the YouTube channel of the nationalist channel Tsargrad in response to US sanctions against its owner. “Google was called by a Russian court to administrative liability under Art. 13.41 of the Administrative Offenses Code for removing channels on the YouTube platform. The court ordered the company to restore these channels,” said Ivan Morozov, lawyer of TASS.
If the stunning amount is not enough, the order states that if the fine is not paid within nine months, it will double every day after that. Moreover, there is no maximum limit, and it will keep doubling every day after nine months. Google will not be allowed to re-enter the Russian market only if pays the penalty.
The court arrived at the figure by accumulating the payable fine starting from 2020, when several Russian media outlets moved court against Google for blocking them.
It is unlikely that Google will pay the fine. The company already ended its Russian operations in 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. After Google’s Russian subsidiary faced several lawsuits over banning Russian outlets, it went bankrupt in 2022.
It is interesting to note that the origin of the word Google lies in another large number, Googol. 1 Googol has 100 zeros after 1. Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin intended to name to company Googol, but due to a typo, they ended up registering it as Google.
