Do, 16:31·Business·imjWhen regulatory bodies try to get international corporations to give in, fines are a popular tool. In this way, the operating costs in the respective country increase. Ideally, a company would find it cheaper to comply with local regulations than pay the high fines. A case from Russia that dates back to 2020 shows the extremes to which such demands can slide. A Russian court considers the blocking of 17 accounts of several state-affiliated media outlets to be illegal and is demanding that they be unblocked. Google didn’t pay and didn’t reactivate the channels. Now the penalty has steadily grown to 2 * 10^36 (sextillion) rubles, reports The Moscow Times – that corresponds to 179 * 10^33 (quintillion) euros.
Originally, Google was supposed to pay 100,000 rubles (currently just under 1,000 euros) for each day that the accounts remained offline. However, the judgment contained a clause that stipulated that the penalty would be doubled after nine months of non-payment – weekly, reported Bloomberg 2021. Nigel Gould-Davies calculates that the current total is many times higher than the global gross national product on X before. The exponential growth does not scare the American company. The local offshoot, YouTube Russia, filed for bankruptcy in 2022. Those responsible are apparently aware of the absurdity of the amount: The outstanding sum is merely symbolic, The Moscow Times quotes a government representative.
YouTube remains accessible
Despite high outstanding demands, the Russian state is reluctant to block the video portal: Russian citizens can currently continue to use YouTube. Meanwhile, other websites, services and apps are not accessible in the Russian Federation. In particular, encrypted chat services and VPN providers are blocked. The latest case concerns the communications platform Discord: the Russian communications authority has stopped its operation in the country since October 2024, the news agency reports Reuters.
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