A Russian court on Monday fined Google 2 undecillion rubles, a number followed by 36 zeroes, or roughly $20 decillion USD. The reason for the gigantic fine was the company's refusal to unblock the accounts of several Russian TV channels on the YouTube video hosting site it owns, by court order.
Where did this fine amount come from?
Most of the court decisions, according to which YouTube channels of Russian media outlets should be unblocked, were made back in 2022. At that time, it was noted that if access to the channels was not returned, a penalty would be collected in favor of Russian TV channels.
The channels that Google was supposed to unblock included Channel One, Russia 1, Russia 24, Zvezda, TV Center, NTV, GPM Entertainment Television, and other TV channels. In addition, the injured party in the case is IP Simonyan M.S., representing the YouTube channel of RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan.
The amount of the penalty in each case was determined individually. For example, the decision on the case of blocking the Zvezda channels stated that the amount of penalty would be 100 thousand rubles per day, and this amount would double weekly until it reached one billion rubles. It was specified that if the channels were not unblocked within nine months, the fine would resume accrual according to the same formula, but without limiting the maximum amount.
Google did not comply with the requirements. As a result, in September the total fine amounted to almost 13 decillion (one with 33 zeros), and at the end of October – 20 decillion USD
At the same time, Mobile Research Group analyst Eldar Murtazin called this fine a curiosity and noted that the company is unlikely to pay it: “There are no payments of this size anywhere in the world. I can also draw any amount of money and demand its payment. It is impossible to fulfill the court's demand, so this is all a curiosity, and to think that people will pay anything is at least ridiculous.”
Google's Russian division declared bankrupt
However, back in May 2022, it became known that Google's subsidiary in Russia, Google LLC, had decided to initiate bankruptcy proceedings. In October 2023, the Moscow Arbitration Court declared Google LLC bankrupt.
Shortly before this, a Russian court seized Google assets worth 500 million rubles at the request of the NTV channel, which demanded that access to its accounts be unblocked. However, the company's problems with Russian legislation began much earlier: back in 2021, a Moscow court fined Google more than seven billion rubles for systematically failing to remove prohibited information.
Google has been repeatedly fined multi-million dollars in Russia
Google has been held accountable in Russia many times and has been issued large fines. Thus, the company was assigned a turnover fine three times for failing to remove prohibited information: the first was 7.2 billion rubles, the second – 21.77 billion rubles, the third – 4.6 billion rubles. Google tried to appeal them but was denied in court.
Google was also issued multi-million dollar fines for refusing to localize Russians' data within the country. In November 2023, the court ordered it to pay 15 million rubles for this violation.
In addition, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) fined Google for non-transparent and biased rules for blocking accounts on YouTube. The company had to pay twenty Decilion rubles.
YouTube began massively blocking Russian media channels in 2022
Mass blocking of Russian media on YouTube began in 2022, after the start of the special operation. “We are blocking access to YouTube channels associated with Russian state media worldwide,” the platform reported. In addition, the video hosting service promised to remove content about the special operation in Ukraine that violates Google's policy.
Following this, YouTube channels of many Russian TV channels and media outlets were removed, including Channel One, Rossiya 1, Zvezda, NTV, TNT, Kultura, REN TV, Izvestia, Channel Five, and Spas. Many of them went to court.
In addition, YouTube has removed the channels of several Russian bloggers. Among those who have faced restrictions on the platform are bloggers Dmitry Puchkov, Artemy Lebedev, Stas Vasiliev, journalist Nadana Fridrikhson, director Nikita Mikhalkov and actor Vyacheslav Manucharov.
According to Roskomnadzor, since 2020 the video hosting service has restricted access to more than 200 Russian channels.
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