A Russian court has fined Google two billion rubles – two followed by 36 zeros – for restricting Russian news channels on YouTube.
In dollars that means the tech giant was told to pay $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
Despite being one of the richest companies in the world, that’s far more than the 2 trillion Google is worth.
In fact, it is much larger than the total GDP of the world, estimated by the International Monetary Fund at 110 billion dollars.
Penalty has reached such a bad level because – state news agency Tass says – it is doubled every day it is not paid.
According to Tass, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov admitted that he “can’t even say this number” but urged “Google executives to pay attention.”
The company did not comment publicly or respond to the BBC’s request for a statement.
Russian media reports RBC the fine on Google is related to the content ban of 17 Russian media channels on YouTube.
While this started in 2020, it escalated after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years later.
That saw many Western companies leave Russia, with doing business there is also strictly prohibited by sanctions.
Russian media were also banned in Europe – encourages retaliatory measures from Moscow.
The development is the latest escalation between Russia and the American tech giant.
In May, 2021, the Russian news regulator Roskomnadzor has accused Google of restricting YouTube’s access to Russian mediaincluding RT and Sputnik, and supporting “illegal protest activity”.
Then, in July, 2022, Russia has fined Google 21.1bn rubles (£301m) for failing to restrict access to what it called “prohibited” material about the war in Ukraine and other content.
There is almost no freedom of the press in Russia, which has independent news outlets as well freedom of speech greatly reduced.
Source link
