Russia officially fines Google more money than what exists in total on Earth

Google revealed its quarterly revenue recently was approximately $88 billion, and while that is certainly an incredible amount of money, it falls extremely short of what a Russian court has ruled Google owes Russian media outlets.

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A Russian court has ruled that Google owes Russian media stations an astonishing $2.5 decillion, which if you thought a million dollars was hard to mentally picture, is unfathomable amount of money. For perspective sake, the World Bank reported Earth's global revenue over a year, or the amount of money the planet generated as a whole was approximately $100 trillion. So, if Earth as a whole paid every cent to Russia, it would take the planet 200 quintillion years, or 200,000,000,000,000,000,000 years, to pay off the fine completely.

How did Russia arrive at this number? The ridiculous fine is the conclusion of a four year court battle that began after YouTube banned the Russian channel Tsargrad in 2020 in response to US sanctions. Additionally, more Russian-owned or backed channels were banned from Google's platform in 2022 following Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion into Ukraine. So far, seventeen Russian stations have been banned from YouTube.

"Google was called by a Russian court to administrative liability under Art. 13.41 of the Administrative Offenses Code for removing channels on the YouTube platform. The court ordered the company to restore these channels," lawyer Ivan Morozov told state media outlet TASS

The Russian court found a fine of 100,000 rubles, or approximately $1,025 a day, with the caveat that total fines double every week and accrue compound interest. According to the judge overseeing the process, it was described as "a case in which there are many, many zeros."

Will Google pay? It's very unlikely that Google, or its parent company Alphabet will be forced into bankruptcy by Russia's fines, as the company hasn't operated actively in the country since 2022.

"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," Alphabet reported in its recent earnings statement

"We do not believe these ongoing legal matters will have a material adverse effect," wrote Google