The amount of claims by Russian TV channels against Google due to account blocking on YouTube has increased to 2 undecillion rubles, reports RBC citing sources. During the latest court session on Google's fines, which took place on October 28, the judge mentioned that he is considering a «case with many, many zeros».
In the aforementioned lawsuits, the court had previously ordered Google to restore their accounts on YouTube, and in case of non-compliance — to impose a penalty. If the court's decision is not fulfilled within nine months from the moment it comes into force, a fine of 100 thousand rubles is imposed for each day of non-compliance. The amount doubles every week until the decision is fulfilled, without limitation on the total fine amount. One of the participants in the process stated that in September, the total fine amounted to almost 13 decillion, a number with 33 zeros.
The affected parties in the case against Google include the channels «Zvezda», «Channel One», VGTRK (channels «Russia 1», «Russia 24», etc.), «Parliamentary Television», «Moscow Media», «TV Center», NTV, «GPM Entertainment Television», «Public Television of Russia», «Channel 360», «TRK Petersburg», «Orthodox Television Foundation», «National Sports Channel», «Technology Company Center», as well as individual entrepreneur Simonyan M.S., representing the YouTube channel of propagandist Margarita Simonyan.
In June 2022, the Russian legal entity Google — LLC «Google» — filed for bankruptcy. A company representative explained this by stating that at that time, debts exceeded 19 billion rubles, while assets amounted to only 3.5 billion rubles. In November 2023, the court declared «Google» bankrupt.