Russia fines Google more than the world’s entire GDP

It’s the kind of fine you might want to consider paying off in instalments.

A Russian court has demanded Google pay a number so large that even the Kremlin conceded to NBC News on Thursday it was more a symbolic gesture than a sum it soon expects to bolster its war funds.

The fine amounts to around $20 decillion — 20 followed by 33 zeros — or two undecillion rubles, a 37-digit figure. 

According to the Russian news outlet RBC, the fine is the total amount demanded by 17 Russian television channels and other media outlets 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. 

The court that imposed the fine might be in for a long wait for Google to pay up, however.

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

That said, at least the fine is not as large as a googol, which has 100 zeroes. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin picked the number as the name of the search engine they then hoped would organize large quantities of information. 

“Although it is a specific amount, I cannot even say this number, it is rather filled with symbolism,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday when asked by NBC News how Google was expected to pay such a large sum.

“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 the Google leadership to pay attention to this and improve the situation.”

The amount the court says Google owes is growing, too.

While the case was first opened in 2020, when Google blocked channels that then belonged to Wagner Group mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, it was expanded when YouTube banned further channels after 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 (around $1,000) levied for each day after that period. The size of the fine was to double each week for every week of noncompliance, with no limit on its size, RBC said.

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

Shares in Google parent-company Alphabet ticked down 1.2% in premarket trading, after closing almost 3% higher Wednesday when the company released quarterly earnings that were received well by investors.

In the section of its third quarter earnings release titled ‘Legal Matters,’ Alphabet said: “We have ongoing legal matters relating to Russia. For example, civil judgments that include compounding penalties have been imposed upon us in connection with disputes regarding the termination of accounts, including those of 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.