Russia fines Google 20 decillion, more than the world’s GDP

These are the kinds of fines you might want to consider paying off in installments.

A Russian court has ordered Google to pay a figure so large that even the Kremlin admitted to NBC News on Thursday that it was more of a symbolic gesture than an amount it soon expects to bolster its war funds.

The fine amounts to about $20 decillion — 20 followed by 33 zeros — or two unbillion rubles, a 37-digit number.

According to Russian news outlet RBC, the fine is the total amount demanded by 17 Russian TV channels and other media whose output has been blocked from YouTube – the video platform owned by the tech giant – as sanctioned supporters of President Vladimir Putin’s regime and its invasion of Ukraine.

However, the court that imposed the fine may have to wait a long time for Google to pay.

Not only does the figure eclipse Google’s $2 trillion market cap, but it’s also far larger than the size of the entire global economy, which the International Monetary Fund estimates at about $110 trillion — a number with just 13 zeros.

That said, at least the fine is not as big as a googol that has 100 zeros. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin chose the number as the name of the search engine they hoped would organize large amounts of information.

“Although it’s a specific amount, I can’t even say this number, it’s quite full of symbolism,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday when asked by NBC News how Google was expected to pay such a large amount.

“The company should not restrict our broadcasters on their platform,” he added on his daily briefing call with reporters. “This should be a reason for Google management to pay attention to this and improve the situation.”

The amount the court says Google owes is also growing.

While the case was first opened in 2020 when Google blocked channels then belonging to Wagner Group mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, it expanded when YouTube banned additional channels following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The court ordered Google to restore the accounts within nine months, with a fine of 100,000 rubles (about $1,000) for each day beyond that period. The size of the fine was to double each week for each week of non-compliance, with no limit on its size, RBC said.

Some of these Russian media outlets have also appealed to courts in Turkey, Hungary, Spain and South Africa to enforce court rulings against Google in Russia. In June, South Africa’s Supreme Court granted a request to seize some of Google’s assets in that country.

Shares in Google parent Alphabet ticked down 1.2% in premarket trading, after closing nearly 3% higher on Wednesday, as the company published quarterly results which was well received by investors.

In the third quarter earnings release section titled ‘Legal Matters,’ Alphabet said: “We have ongoing legal matters relating to Russia. For example, civil judgments that include increased penalties have been imposed on us in connection with account termination disputes, including sanctioned parties.”

The company added: “We do not believe these ongoing legal matters will have a material adverse effect.”

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.