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The Courts Google The Almighty Buck

Russian Court Fines Google $20 Decillion For Blocking Media Content (theregister.com) 64

Posted by BeauHD from the that's-a-lot-of-zeros dept.
A Russian court has fined Google an astronomical sum of around $20 decillion for YouTube's blocking of Russian media channels tied to sanctioned entities. The amount compounds weekly as Google continues to disregard the ruling. The Register reports: To put that into perspective, the World Bank estimates global GDP as around $100 trillion, which is peanuts compared to the prospective fine. Google might be one of the most valuable businesses on the planet, but even if Sundar Pichai rummages around the back of the sofa he won't be able to raise the funds to pay the penalty. The bizarre amount has been calculated after a four-year court case that started after YouTube banned the ultra-nationalist Russian channel Tsargrad in 2020 in response to the US sanctions imposed against its owner. Following Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022 more channels were added to the banned list and 17 stations are now suing the Chocolate Factory, including Zvezda (a TV channel owned by Putin's Ministry of Defence), according to local media.

"Google was called by a Russian court to administrative liability under Art. 13.41 of the Administrative Offenses Code for removing channels on the YouTube platform. The court ordered the company to restore these channels," lawyer Ivan Morozov told state media outlet TASS. The court imposed a fine of 100 thousand rubles ($1,025) per day, with the total fine doubling every week. Owing to compound interest (Einstein's eighth wonder of the world), Google is now on the hook for an insane amount of money, or what the judge on Monday called "a case in which there are many, many zeros."

Russian Court Fines Google $20 Decillion For Blocking Media Content More | Reply

Russian Court Fines Google $20 Decillion For Blocking Media Content

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  • The comment moderation is out of control on youtube. I was just banned for posting a comment calling people standing in the middle of the road dumb. Blocked for bullying...

    • And people used to complain about film commissions for censoring this movie or that for decades...

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Malay2bowman ( 10422660 )
      I've been saying this for months now. Apparently they announced "getting tough" in 2022 but really put the hammer down this year. And there are just about endless Reddit and Quora forums full of complaints about Google's (YouTube) behavior regarding ghosting and deleting comments.

      • What about asking you to log in to prove you're not a bot? Or randomly giving VPN users the endless circle?

        • By "endless circle" I assume you are talking about the "click on all the squares that contain a crosswalk".."click on the squares that contain a bike"..ad infinitum. So they use you to help train their AI, and they may or may not give you access to services after putting you through this torment. They do this because they can't directly track you for that valuable 'telemetry', so they use this other method to extract value from you. "You are the product"

          • By "endless circle" I assume you are talking about the "click on all the squares that contain a crosswalk".."click on the squares that contain a bike"..ad infinitum. So they use you to help train their AI, and they may or may not give you access to services after putting you through this torment. They do this because they can't directly track you for that valuable 'telemetry', so they use this other method to extract value from you. "You are the product"

            Wait, I thought this was the "dump on Russia and praise Google" story.

    • YouTube is following Google Search: getting worse and worse.

      Current example: I teach programming from a really excellent book where the author includes QR codes to videos snippets, in which he shows and explains how to solve certain exercises. This year, for no apparent reason, all of his videos are "unavailable". Inquiries to YouTube support? No answer, just a black hole.

      Big companies are supposed to benefit from economy of scale. Why is it, that as companies get bigger, their services get worse?

      • Big companies are supposed to benefit from economy of scale. Why is it, that as companies get bigger, their services get worse?

        I've also consistently observed this in many areas: while things consistently get "bigger" and more expensive, the quality of service plummets. For example, the Deutsche Bahn. Railway tickets are so much more expensive than they were 20, 30 or 40 years ago, even adjusted for inflation. But the service and quality has declined in several ways. 20 years ago you could board a train and buy the ticket inside the train, from the ticket inspector. Nowadays, if you're on the train without a ticket, you're treated

    • Ah censorship by checking key words. You probably meant that that was not a very smart position to take and that the involved people were probably competing for a Darwin award.

    • I was just banned for posting a comment calling people standing in the middle of the road dumb. .

      I've had posts deleted here for using retard/retarded in the absolutely correct context, (retarded the development of...)

      Illiterate pantywaisters with mod power are the same everywhere. Ret... I mean du.... hmmmm......

    • It will only get worse as long as there is no purge like at Twitter.

  • Dr evil (Score:3)

    by niff ( 175639 ) <woutervannifteri ... m ['mai' in gap]> on Wednesday October 30, 2024 @03:22AM (#64905353) Homepage
    I want one hundred thousand dollars! Muhahaha. No, wait.. I want 3453453457532342352463462452453467753345346 quadrillion dollars. Muhahaha.

  • a wimp like Mr. Elon, so the Russkies can forget about these money /s

  • It's performative justice (Score:5, Informative)

    by gijoel ( 628142 ) on Wednesday October 30, 2024 @03:33AM (#64905361)
    Aimed at scaring the local oligarchs and feeble attempt to intimidate western companies. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone was sentenced, in absentia, [apnews.com] six years in prison by a Russian court.

    They have no way of enforcing their rulings. Google isn't going to pay a cent of that fine and Andy Stone isn't going to be breaking rocks in Siberia.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by vbdasc ( 146051 )

      Actually, they have. Just drop a couple of Sarmat ICBMs over Washington DC, and Google will happily pay twice that amount. Of course, after the feds print it :) /s

      • Russia would be able to use some of that money for research in terraforming on the sheet of glass which used to be their country

      • The ones that explode in their silos instead of, you know, launching? These Sarmat ICBMs?

      • Actually, they have. Just drop a couple of Sarmat ICBMs over Washington DC,

        Given all the problems they've had with those missiles, "dropping them" over Washington - from a plane, from a balloon - is probably the only way they could get there.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by thsths ( 31372 )

      This. As you can expect from a totalitarian system.

    • You're assuming flawless play on the part of the convicted. But as we've seen with Pavel Durov, sometimes careless billionaires can end up in the wrong country either by mistake or by arrogance.

    • Not just that, it's also exclusionary justice. The purposes of such rulings are not to punish the targets, it's to actively exclude them. It effectively keeps Google out of the Russian market through a court order.

  • Russian humor is an acquired taste (Score:3)

    by TheNameOfNick ( 7286618 ) on Wednesday October 30, 2024 @03:48AM (#64905375)

    Of course by acquired I mean pillaged.

  • Handy list of large number names (Score:3, Informative)

    by devlp0 ( 897273 ) on Wednesday October 30, 2024 @03:51AM (#64905379) Journal
    To help get a feel for the enormity of it:

    https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_large_numbers

    Worthy note, a trillion is number 9 in the list whereas decillion is at number 16. Whoosh!
    • What would happen if Google wired the money (in Rubels) and used (by means of some external help) an exchange rate of 1E-33.
      Banks can multiply money. Let's give Google permission to do this for one time.
      • Well, I wonder what would happen if the fine would be actually paid. It would mean an injection of such an enormous amount of money that the existing Russian economy is wiped out in comparison.

    • Even more telling is they never even bothered to assign an SI prefix to it. That's how little anyone expected this number to be used outside of scientific notation.

  • A cue to anyone... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by TuringTest ( 533084 )

    who uses the words "real money" together unironically.

    A good reminder that money only 'exists' so far as you can convince someone to act upon it, and then the precise numeral you put on it doesn't really matter much.

  • Missed opportunity (Score:5, Funny)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Wednesday October 30, 2024 @04:06AM (#64905401)

    Russia is lame, they should have asked for a $1 Googol. :-)

  • So what should Google's response be? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ukoda ( 537183 ) on Wednesday October 30, 2024 @04:28AM (#64905423) Homepage
    Hope Google doesn't have any staff still in Russia as they would likely be doing jail time soon. Such a stupid number is basically a fuck you declaration of war by Russia on Google. Google really should stop pretending there is any value in playing lip service to Russia and think of a creative way to respond. Google doesn't really have any reason to pull its punches and given the money and tech behind them they should be able to come up with interesting ways to annoy Russia, what's Russia going to do, fine them another $20 Decillion?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tom ( 822 )

      Didn't Google's subsidiary in Russia file for bancruptcy in 2022 ?

      I don't think there's any staff remaining.

      Google also never was as big in Russia as in the rest of the world, thanks to Yandex, its pretty strong Russian competitor.

    • Google's Russian business was wound up in 2022 and all staff not relocated out of Russia were laid off (200 of them). Incidentally Russia also seized their assets as a money grab to stop these rich companies leaving. There's nothing Google related in Russia anymore, there's no lip service required, there's simply nothing. Google has no businesses there and is unaffected and as such it doesn't warrant a response.

      Responses are for PR. There's no point in doing any.

  • Can I pay in cookies? I have a couple duodecillion.

  • Pay them in crypto (Score:3)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Wednesday October 30, 2024 @05:11AM (#64905473)

    Create coin, say it's worth one dollar each, mint a hundred kajillions of them.

    For added lulz, back it against World Liberty Financial tokens.

  • Good thing Google is a US company (Score:3)

    by carnivore302 ( 708545 ) on Wednesday October 30, 2024 @05:18AM (#64905479) Journal

    I googled:

    How much is a decillion?
    noun. a cardinal number represented in the U.S. by 1 followed by 33 zeros, and in Great Britain by 1 followed by 60 zeros.

    Sundar must be glad Google is a U.S. company.

  • The old Alex Jones special

  • Perhaps it's a fine designed as an excuse to completely ban Google in the country and replace its services with state-owned, survelied digital products?

  • Clickbait vs reality (Score:5, Informative)

    by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Wednesday October 30, 2024 @05:45AM (#64905513)

    Shit tier clickbait that is copy pasted from a X mistranslation from an X user who put the original source at the very end of the thread to ensure that as few people as possible would get to the source and fact check him.

    Original source is Astra's telegram channel. Astra is a group of Russian expat journalists in the West who try to run an independent and iirc crowdfunded news outlet aimed at Russians. Mostly successfully, they're surprisingly good at what they do considering the meager resources. If you can read Russian, they're worth following if you want independent news source collating things happening in Russia while trying to not be biased. And yes they have the badge of honor of being declared a "foreign agent" in Russian Federation.

    https://t.me/astrapress/ [t.me]

    Or

    https://astra.press/ [astra.press]

    This is the story being incorrectly translated:

    https://t.me/astrapress/67386 [t.me]

    And this is the story they are referencing:

    https://www.rbc.ru/technology_... [www.rbc.ru]

    Story references an anonymous source saying that judge involved is "considering a case with lots and lots of zeroes". It's actually just a demand made by plaintiffs. This was being mistranslated as "this has been ruled on".

    The actual fine that is in place is 100.000 roubles for every day block is in effect.

    Very prosaic compared to bullshit title.

    This is the twitter post with incorrect translation where everyone got their barely modified copypasta from:

    https://x.com/ChrisO_wiki/stat... [x.com]

    Notice that he put the source at the very bottom of the thread so as few as possible would fact check him.

    • Story references an anonymous source saying that judge involved is "considering a case with lots and lots of zeroes". It's actually just a demand made by plaintiffs. This was being mistranslated as "this has been ruled on".

      The actual fine that is in place is 100.000 roubles for every day block is in effect.

      How dare you post facts and spoil our two-minute hate!

  • 20 thousand quetta dollars. We need a new prefix.

  • Pretty soon the system used to track the amount of this fine will overflow the number of bits assigned to the amount, the amount will reset and Google can pay a fine of 1 Ruble.

  • Einstein (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Wednesday October 30, 2024 @06:46AM (#64905611)

    From TFS:

    Einstein's eighth wonder of the world

    This references the quote often misattributed to Einstein that, "Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn't, pays it."

    There is no evidence that Einstein ever said that.

    It was first (mis)attributed to him in 1983, 28 years after he died.

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