Google is facing increasingly high fines from Russia, exceeding two trillion rubles and doubling each week, along with the possibility of service being blocked as tensions escalate.

Google and the never-ending fine: The 36-digit debt may just be the beginning

The tech giant Google currently owes the Russian government more than two trillion rubles, a 36-digit amount doubling every day due to ongoing fines, lawyer Ivan Morozov told the Tass publication this week. In dollar terms, this means the tech giant has been ordered to pay approximately 20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

These fines stem from Google’s refusal to comply with a Russian court order under Article 13.41 of the Administrative Offenses Code to restore the deleted Russian state television channels from YouTube. Morozov explains:

Google has been summoned by a Russian court to bear administrative responsibility under Article 13.41 of the Administrative Offenses Code for deleting channels on the YouTube platform. The court has ordered the company to restore these channels.

Google can only continue to operate in Russia if it complies with the court's orders.

Roman Yankovsky from HSE in Moscow estimates that this fine could soon exceed the market value of Alphabet. "Google is a public company, so its value can be calculated by looking at the stock market value of a Google share, or more precisely, a share of Google's parent company, Alphabet," he said, adding:

The scale of this claim will soon exceed the value of Google, as it doubles each week and within a year, the scale of the claim could exceed a googol, a number represented by the digit 1 followed by one hundred zeros.

He asserted that Google "clearly will not pay this compensation claim and the Russian Federation will not be able to recover this amount", as Google has moved or has had its assets seized in Russia. Yankovsky warned that "the speed of access to Google services ... will be reduced, access may be blocked", complicating access to services for Russians. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described this fine as "symbolic", urging Google to "fix the situation" by restoring Russian television channels, calling it "the best thing the company can do".
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