Russia fining Google more money than exists in the entire world.

I heard about this story earlier this morning and it just made me laugh. Russia is very upset with Google because of their coverage and sometimes lack of coverage of the war in Ukraine. Google has also started restricting other media outlets on their platform due to their support of Russia in the invasion of Ukraine. 

Google has also started restricting new accounts for Russian users and Google has also deactivated AdSense accounts in august for advertisers in Russia. 

According to the-independent.com,
‘A Russian court has fined Google $2.5 decillion for allegedly blocking pro-Kremlin propaganda on YouTube. The fine, which is the equivalent of $2.5 trillion trillion trillion, is the result of four years of accumulated fines, with the figure currently doubling every week under Russian law. 

To put this fine into perspective it would be equal to more than the world's GDP of about $105 trillion, A very small fraction of the actual fine. 

The original penalty of 100,000 rubles was levied in 2020.  

The response from Russia was to seize control of Google's bank accounts in the country and it has caused the Russian division of Google to go bankrupt. This has not interrupted any of Google's free services in the country. 

Google seems to be unconcerned about the lawsuits or the fines levied in Russia and believe that they will be continuing business as usual. In Google's words “We do not believe these ongoing legal matters will have a material adverse effect.” 

All of this noise from Russia hasn't seemed to cause any difficulty to Google or their parent company Alphabet at all, aftermarket trading on alphabet has gone up 5% since Tuesday. 

Think about this, Google and their parent company Alphabet are so big that they can thumb their nose at Russia and get away with it. 

I guess that's probably because Russia would find it difficult to push Google out a fifth story window. 

Russia fines Google $2,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 | The Independent
GOOG 10-Q Q2 2024
A Russian Court Hit Google With a Fine Larger Than the World's GDP - Business Insider