Russian Court Wants Google to Cough Up $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,

A Russian tribunal has ordered Google to fork implicit a calculator-breaking sum of wealth to much than a twelve TV channels whose programming the tech institution blocked from appearing connected YouTube.

The good has been accruing since 2020, erstwhile Russian outlets Tsargrad TV and RIA FAN sued Google for blocking their content, according to Novaya Gazeta. Since then, the punishment has continued to turn arsenic 15 different channels, including Kremlin-backed networks, won tribunal cases against Google. “As of Tuesday, the good totaled 2 undecillion rubles (that’s 2 followed by 36 zeros), which is equivalent to astir $20 decillion (2 followed by 34 zeros) U.S. dollars.

Given that Google has gone years without paying the fine, it’s improbable the institution is going to unfastened its checkbook present that the numbers are getting truly goofy. And adjacent if it wanted to, Google couldn’t screen the bill. As the 4th astir invaluable institution successful the world, Google’s genitor company, Alphabet, has a marketplace capitalization of lone $2 trillion.

Ukrainian quality bureau RBC-Ukraine reported that the tribunal good is doubling each week that Google fails to pay. At that rate, it volition instrumentality astir 219 weeks earlier Google owes $1 googol (1 followed by 100 zeros).

Google did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

While the existent good whitethorn beryllium patently unrealistic, The Russian TV channels’ tribunal cases against Google person had existent consequences for the company. Google’s subsidiary declared bankruptcy successful 2022 aft courts seized much than $100 cardinal successful assets from its Russian accounts, The Telegraph reported. Google has countersued respective of the Russian outlets to forestall them from pursuing the company’s assets successful different countries, including South Africa, Turkey, Serbia, and Kyrgyzstan.

The YouTube artifact of Tsargrad TV successful 2020 came aft the U.S. sanctioned its owner, Konstantin Maolfeyev, a Russian oligarch who the Department of Justice said was instrumental successful the country’s 2014 and 2022 invasions of Ukraine. RIA FAN was acceptable up by Yevgeny Prigozhin, according to Novaya Gazeta, who was the co-founder of the mercenary Wagner Group and primitively a staunch backer of Vladamir Putin earlier starring a mutiny against the Russian person past twelvemonth that ended erstwhile a pitchy carrying Prigozhin and 9 others mysteriously crashed.

Since then, YouTube has blocked hundreds of channels affiliated with Russia-owned quality outlets similar RT to comply with U.S. sanctions. The institution has also said that immoderate Russian channels person been blocked due to the fact that they posted contented that “minimizes oregon trivializes well-documented convulsive events,” referring to Russia’s ongoing penetration of Ukraine.