Russia Might ‘Bankrupt’ Google with Unpayable High-quality.
A million {dollars} just isn’t sufficient? – “OK then,” Russia says, in true Dr. Evil model, “we are going to maintain Google ransom for two.5 trillion trillion trillion {dollars}.”
Credit score: Shutterstock, Tomas Ragina.
Russia drop colossal monetary blow on Google – Hefty effective tops world’s complete GDP for blocking Kremlin propaganda.
In what would be the mom of all fines, Google has been slapped with a penalty that makes even the world’s total economic system appear to be pocket change. Russia’s penalty is for a staggering 20 undecillion rubles – $20 decillion- or 2.5 trillion trillion trillion {dollars}! The effective is for Google’s refusal to revive YouTube channels with Kremlin-friendly content material.
The world’s GDP is at the moment estimated at $110 thousand billion (12-digit determine) by the IMF. The sum has grown so astronomical it could take greater than the mixed GDP of each nation on Earth to settle this Russian tab.
For the reason that saga started in 2020, Google has been butting heads with Moscow after pulling the plug on pro-Russian shops, together with Tsargrad TV and RIA FAN, as a result of sanctions linked to the Ukraine invasion. With 17 Russian channels now banned on YouTube, Russia hit again with the effective, which doubles day by day for each missed cost. Neglect merely re-entering the Russian market – Google is perhaps locked out till they conjure up a universe’s price of money.
Russian information company Tass claims Google now owes a “36-figure sum” underneath Russia’s Administrative Offences Code. One unnamed decide, with a wit that might fill a Kremlin courtyard, mentioned he was dealing with “a case by which there are numerous, many zeros.”
As if this monetary colossus wasn’t mind-boggling sufficient, Google must work over 33 quintillion years to pay it off, even when they forked over their total revenue yearly. That’s proper: quintillion with 18 zeros – or, in different phrases, an eternity’s work. Not that Google’s fretting an excessive amount of; with their market worth at round $2.16 trillion, this effective is a reminder that some disputes would possibly simply be too wealthy for even tech giants to resolve.
Regardless of their Russian financial institution accounts being frozen and their Moscow workplace submitting for chapter in 2022, Google’s free companies, together with YouTube and Search, stay accessible in Russia. However whereas Russian netizens can nonetheless search and stream, it’s not with out price. Google axed AdSense in Russia in August and stopped all on-line adverts within the nation again in 2022.
So, except Google coughs up the unimaginable and submits to the ruling, this cosmic standoff might go on indefinitely, eclipsing not solely economies however maybe even the lifespan of our galaxy.
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