Russia wants Google to pay a fine of 20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 euros

Russian court sentences Google to record fine.

According to a Russian court, Google is stuck with unpaid fines amounting to around 20 quintillion euros – a 1 with 33 zeros behind it.

As the Moscow Times reports, citing the state news agency Tass, these are penalties for blocking Russian media on YouTube.

Four years ago, Google blocked the Russian channel Tsargrad as a result of US sanctions against the channel’s owner. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, more Russian channels were removed from Google.

A Russian court then fined Google 100,000 rubles (about $1,025) per day. The court also stipulated that the penalty would double every week until Google complied with the court’s order. This is how the absurd sum is said to have accumulated over time.

Google: Payment is considered excluded

Google suspended all of its operations in Russia in 2022 at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As a result, Google’s Russian accounts were confiscated.

It is unlikely that Google will pay the fine.

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Even if the willingness were there, the world’s entire monetary reserves would not be enough to pay them: there are only around 400 trillion euros in circulation in the world, significantly less than the required 20 quintillion. Google achieved sales of around 300 billion euros in 2023.

In addition, Google has not yet commented on the amount now required, but announced in 2023: We do not believe that the ongoing legal issues are having a noticeable negative effect.

BP paid the largest fine to date in 2015 as a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The value at the time was $20.8 billion.