A host of Russian news broadcasters have sued the tech giant for blocking their content on YouTube, and the penalties are adding up
Russian news broadcasters are owed an unbelievable sum from US tech giant Google over their loss of access to YouTube, RBK news outlet reported on Tuesday, citing sources with knowledge of the matter. According to the report, the total amount Google owes the 17 Russian broadcasters has reached $20.6 decillion as of October 28.
The staggering figure stems from a host of lawsuits filed against Google, in which a number of Russian news channels accused it of unlawfully blocking their content on the video hosting platform.
In October 2022, the Moscow Arbitration Court ordered Google to restore YouTube access to the blocked Russian channels. It placed a compounding penalty of 100,000 rubles per day ($1,028) on the tech giant if it did not comply, with a provision that every week, the amount of the penalty would double, with no cap on the total amount.
During the latest court hearing on the case on Monday, the judge mentioned that he was considering “a case with many, many zeroes,” RBK reported. A source close to the proceedings claimed that in September the fine had reached almost 13 decillion rubles but has now climbed to over 2 undecillion, or $20.6 decillion – a number with 34 zeroes. The ruble currently trades at around 90 to the dollar.
The lawsuits date back to 2020, when Google blocked the YouTube channels of Tsargrad TV and RIA news agency, citing US sanctions against their owners. After the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, the tech giant announced that it was “pausing Google’s monetization of Russian Federation state-funded media,” and dozens more Russian media accounts were blocked, including those of Sputnik, RT, Spas and others. A number of broadcasters, including Tsargrad, subsequently sued Google, demanding that the decisions be overturned.
The Moscow court’s decision allows Russian broadcasters to appeal to international courts with a request to enforce it in their jurisdictions. Such lawsuits have already been filed against Google in Türkiye, Hungary and other countries. In South Africa, Spas, a Russian Orthodox Christian TV channel, obtained a court order for the seizure of Google’s assets over its failure to restore the channel’s YouTube account in June this year.
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, said earlier this year it does not “believe these ongoing legal matters will have a material adverse effect” on the company. However, in August, Google filed lawsuits in US and UK courts against RT, Tsargrad, and Spas, seeking to ban them from initiating legal proceedings in foreign jurisdictions based on the Moscow court’s order.
