A Russian court has fined Google a mammoth $US20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 – more than all the money in the world – after the tech giant banned its video content.

The incredible penalty follows the outcome of a four-year court case trigged by YouTube banning the ultra-nationalist Russian channel Tsargrad in 2020, in response to the US sanctions imposed on its parent company.

In 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, YouTube responded by blocking several major Russian channels, including Channel One, Moscow Media, and Public Television of Russia.

A Russian court ordered Google to restore these channels and initially set a daily fine of about 100,000 rubles for each day the channels were offline. This penalty doubled every week that Google maintained the block, eventually leading to this week’s staggering amount.

On Thursday (local time), a Russian court ruled the violations had cost the tech giant 2 undecillion rubles or $20 decillion (a 33-digit figure), according to lawyer Ivan Morozov, cited by Russian state news agency TASS.

In the US, one undecillion is a one followed by 36 zeros, while in Britain, it is a one followed by 66 zeros.

The sum is far larger than Google’s own net worth of an estimated $US2.1 trillion ($3.2 trillion) – and higher than all the money in the world combined.

Even with its declared earnings of $80.54 billion ($A122.6 billion) int the past quarter, it does appear the tech giant cannot afford to pay the fine.

One expert cited by the Russian news agency, Roman Yankovsky, from the HSE Institute of Education, told TASS that Google “clearly will not pay this penalty, and the Russian Federation will not be able to recover this money from the company.”

The Kremlin said on Thursday that the huge fines imposed on Google were largely symbolic and designed to spur the internet giant into lifting restrictions on Russian YouTube channels.

“I can’t even pronounce this number, but it is more likely imbued with symbolism,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies.

“Google should not restrict the actions of our broadcasters, but it does. This should be a reason for Google’s management to pay attention to this and correct the situation,” he said.

-with agencies