New Delhi: The ongoing battle between Russia and Google is now being discussed all over the world. Russia has been fighting a war on two fronts simultaneously since 2022. It is fighting Ukraine with direct weapons while there is an economic war going on with America. Since the war with Ukraine began, America has continuously imposed sanctions on Russia one after the other.

But this time Russia has imposed a fine on an American company. Russia has imposed a fine on Google, one of the biggest companies in America, so much that there is more money than there is on the entire earth. Yes, you read it absolutely right, there is no such amount of money on earth and the amount that the Russian court has demanded from Google has so many zeros that you will get tired of counting them.

In fact, the Russian court has said in its order that Google will have to pay a fine of 2.5 decillion dollars. This amount is so huge that there is not that much money on the whole earth. This is because to count decillion, 36 zeros are put after 1. That too according to American counting, if we look at British counting, then 60 zeros will have to be added. If we look at American counting, then Russia has imposed a fine of 250000000000000000000000000000000000000, which is such a huge amount that even the entire world's money combined cannot reach it.

What is the controversy?

The case began nearly four years ago, when Google removed the accounts of pro-Kremlin and government-controlled media channels such as Tsargrad TV and RIA Fan from YouTube. Google said that these accounts violated restrictive laws and business rules. After this, the Moscow court ordered Google to restore the accounts of these channels and a daily fine of 100,000 rubles was imposed for non-compliance of this order.

The situation became more serious after the war between Russia and Ukraine began in 2022. YouTube also blocked the accounts of other Russian state media channels such as NTV, Russia 24, RT and Sputnik, leading to 17 Russian TV channels filing lawsuits against Google. As a result, the amount of fines began to increase every day.

Following the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Google has substantially reduced its operations in Russia. Services such as YouTube and Google Search remain available within Russian borders. Unlike some US tech companies that withdrew completely, Google continues to have partial operations in Russia, although its Russian subsidiary filed for bankruptcy several months after the conflict after the Russian government seized its bank accounts.

The Kremlin has described the fine as a symbolic measure aimed at forcing Google to reconsider its stance on Russian broadcasters.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian media that the hefty fine amount is intended to draw attention to how seriously Russia views the issue of YouTube's restrictions on Russian media. "I can't even pronounce the exact figure," Peskov said.

Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has used a variety of penalties against foreign tech platforms hosting content it considers anti-Russian or pro-Ukrainian. Although YouTube is still available in Russia, authorities have threatened to block the platform entirely if it continues to ban Russian media channels.

The court reprimanded Google

The Russian court has formally reprimanded Google for not giving Russian media a chance to run its news on YouTube. According to Russian media reports, there are many third party victims in this entire matter. These include TV channels Zvezda, Channel One, VGTRK (TV channels Russia 1, Russia 24, etc.), Parliamentary Television, Moscow Media, TV Center, NTV, GPM Entertainment Television, Public Television of Russia, TV Channel 360, TRK Petersburg, Orthodox Television Foundation, National Sports TV Channel, Technological Company Center and IP Simonyan MS who were presenting their channels on YouTube.