$2,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 4 years of compounded fines for censoring Russian sources on behalf of the US.
Russian news broadcasters are owed an unbelievable sum from US tech giant Google over their loss of access to YouTube, RBK news outlet reported on Wednesday, citing sources with knowledge of the matter. According to the report, the total amount Google owes the 17 Russian broadcasters has reached $20.6 decillion as of October 28.
The staggering figure stems from a host of lawsuits filed against Google, in which a number of Russian news channels accused it of unlawfully blocking their content on the video hosting platform.
In October 2022, the Moscow Arbitration Court ordered Google to restore YouTube access to the blocked Russian channels. It placed a compounding penalty of 100,000 rubles per day ($1,028) on the tech giant if it did not comply, with a provision that every week, the amount of the penalty would double, with no cap on the total amount.
During the latest court hearing on the case on Monday, the judge mentioned that he was considering “a case with many, many zeroes,” RBK reported. A source close to the proceedings claimed that in September the fine had reached almost 13 decillion rubles but has now climbed to over 2 undecillion, or $20.6 decillion – a number with 34 zeroes. The ruble currently trades at around 90 to the dollar.