MOSCOW, October 30. /TASS/. The size of Moscow's claim against Google for blocking Russian state TV channels on YouTube may soon exceed the company’s value, experts interviewed by TASS say.
Earlier, lawyer Ivan Morozov told TASS that Google's fines to the Russian government for administrative violations had reached 2 undecillion rubles (a 36-digit figure) and are increasing daily due to non-payment.
"Google is a public company, so the value can be calculated by looking at the stock market value of one Google share, or more precisely, one share of Google's holding company, Alphabet. Of course, the claim’s size will soon exceed the value of Google, since it doubles every week, and within a year the size of the claim may exceed an actual googol, a number represented by the digit 1 followed by one hundred zeroes," said Roman Yankovsky, an expert at the HSE Institute of Education.
Antonina Levashenko, head of the Center for Competence and Analysis of OECD Standards under the RANEPA Presidential Academy, backed up Yankovsky, saying that the claim amount already exceeds the company’s value.
"This decision appears to be aimed at influencing content moderation policies on internet platforms, especially when content restrictions are politically motivated," she said.
Yankovsky noted that Google "clearly will not pay this claim, and the Russian Federation will not be able to recover this money from the company," since Google does not seem interested in complying with the Russian media watchdog (Roskomnadzor), and all of Google's property that was in Russia has been withdrawn. "Or this property has already been seized," he assumed.
According to him, any claims made by the Russian government are only viable domestically, while an international body would need to bring Google to account.
Yankovsky believes it is likely that Google will take measures to prohibit Russian companies from advertising on Google services going forward.
"The speed of access to Google services - as we already see with YouTube - will be reduced, access could be blocked and so on. As a result of Google’s failure to pay the fines imposed by the Russian Federation represented by Roskomnadzor, Russian citizens and companies will experience more and more difficulties using the company's services," Yankovsky said.