Photo: AFP
London: Google was fined an astounding $20 decillion by a Russian court, the highest amount of penalty ever issued. $20 decillion (20 followed by 33 zeros), which is equal to 2 undecillion rubles (a 37-digit figure) in Russia's own currency, far exceeds the projected $110 trillion (a figure with only 13 zeros) gross domestic product of all nations combined.
The sum exceeds the $206 billion tobacco corporations paid to the US government in 1998, which is still the highest settlement ever reached in a civil lawsuit, Arab News reported.
Google said: “We have ongoing legal matters relating to Russia. For example, civil judgments that include compounding penalties have been imposed upon us in connection with disputes regarding the termination of accounts, including those of sanctioned parties. We do not believe these ongoing legal matters will have a material adverse effect.”
In accordance with US sanctions, Google-owned YouTube banned Tsargrad, a Russian ultra-nationalist, pro-Kremlin channel, from the network in 2020. This is the reason behind the fine, which a court stated comprised "many, many zeros." More than 1,000 YouTube channels and over 5.5 million Russian movies have since been disabled by Google, which also stopped providing advertising services in the nation in March 2022 and stopped monetising content that backs Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
In response, Russian courts levied a number of relatively small fines, but they were not paid. The Russian business newspaper RBC said that the amounts owed have increased significantly due to compound penalties, which were initially set at $1,025 per day and doubled every week. Google announced quarterly earnings of $88.3 billion for the three months ending in September on Tuesday, disclosing the current fine amount. Given that sum, the company would take more than 56 septillions (a number with 24 zeros) years to pay the fine, which is more than 4 trillion times the universe's lifetime.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called on Alphabet, the parent company of Google, to cease restricting Russian YouTube channels. But he acknowledged that the hefty fine—which he claimed he couldn't even pronounce—is only symbolic.
“These demands, they simply demonstrate the essence of our channels’ claims against Google,” Peskov said. “Google should not restrict the activities of our broadcasters, but Google is doing this.
“Probably, this (growing fine) should be a reason for Google’s management to take notice and rectify the situation. It’s the best thing the company can do.”