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Posted: 2024-11-01 01:18:15

Russia has slapped Google with a fine so large that it outranks the world's entire gross domestic product.

A Russian court has ruled that Google must compensate for its block on 17 Russian state media channels broadcasting on YouTube to the tune of 2 undecillion roubles — that's a two followed by 36 zeros — or $US20 decillion (which is 33 zeros).

In dollar terms, Google is looking at something like $US20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or $US20 trillion trillion trillion.

In Australian dollars, that (roughly) equates to $31,210,773,462,863,364,000,000,000,000,000,000.00, according to the XE exchange rate calculator at the time of writing.

The figure is higher than all the money in the world combined, which is estimated by the International Monetary Fund to be $110 trillion.

It's also higher than Google's value of $2 trillion — which, in any other instance, would be a large amount of money.

And it only gets worse for the tech giant.

Ukrainian news agency RBC-Ukraine reported that if Google had still not paid in 219 weeks, they would reach territory beginning to sound completely made up — $1 googol, which is a 1 followed by 100 zeros (and the origin of the name Google).

According to Russian news agency TASS, the fine will grow because of penalties incurred due to non-payment.

If the court's decision is not enforced within nine months, a fine of 100,000 roubles is charged every day ($1,025) and then doubled every week, TASS reported.

Don't worry, not even a spokesperson for the Kremlin knows.

"I can't even pronounce this number, but it is more likely imbued with symbolism," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies.

The Kremlin said on Thursday that it hoped huge legal claims racking up against the US-based company would jolt it into action.

Google stopped serving ads to users in Russia in March 2022 and paused monetisation of content it deemed was exploiting, dismissing or condoning Russia's war in Ukraine.

It has since blocked more than 1,000 YouTube channels, including state-sponsored news, and over 5.5 million videos.

"These demands — they simply demonstrate the essence of our channels' claims against Google," Mr Peskov told reporters.

"Google should not restrict the activities of our broadcasters, and Google is doing this.

"Probably, this [the huge legal claims mounting up] should be a reason for Google's management to take notice and rectify the situation. It's the best thing the company can do."

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

ABC/wires

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