A Russian court has reportedly fined Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) a truly astronomical fine for blocking a group of TV channels on YouTube.
The court says Google has racked up a fine of 2 “undecillion” rubles, or about $20 “decillion,” for blocking the accounts of pro-Russian and state-run media outlets, Russian news outlet RBC reports.
A “undecillion” is a number equal to 1 followed by 36 zeros. A “decillion” is a number equal to 1 followed by 33 zeros.
In other words, the $20 decillion fine is twenty trillion trillion dollars ($20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). That’s 200 quintillion (200,000,000,000,000,000,000) times the world’s GDP!
Recall that Russian media sued Google after the tech giant blocked the channels due to “violations of sanctions legislation and trade rules.”
According to RBC, the courts ordered Google to pay an initial fine of 100,000 rubles – a penalty that doubled for every week the channels were not restored.
Of course, that penalty will likely never be paid, and the case had no impact on the stock of Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG), Google’s parent company.
On the other hand, last night’s better-than-expected Q3 results led to a rally of more than 5% in after-hours trading. The company reported EPS of $2.12, 14.7% above consensus expectations, on revenue of $88.27 billion, also above forecasts.