It's unfortunate that you've been down voted because you do raise a valid point in terms of desktop policies in industries that dont the have the same lax attitudes to PC usage that us IT professionals enjoy.
In an previous job our company also supported call centres. The call centre agents wouldn't be allowed to use their PCs for anything other than work usage. Definitely no games. We would use web filtering to help enforce the web usage policies but Google Easter Eggs, April fools jokes and even the occasional Google Doodle would often prove to be a complete nightmare for us as many of the lesser motivated agents would just sit on them all morning (bare in mind we are talking about entry level jobs in an industry with limited career growth).
Some of us oldies will also remember the Easter Eggs in MS Office (eg the 3D flight simulator in Excel 98 and the pinball game in Word 95) and the problems that caused desktop administrators in the late 90s. It's essentially the same thing again from Google.
I think sometimes we on HN can forget that IT isn't just used by motivated engineers like ourselves. Many schools and businesses enforce stricter usage policies. So i completely agree with you that these kind of stunts from Google, while amusing for engineers like ourselves, are ultimately unprofessional for the wider business community.
I used to like that, it makes companies a little more human. But for a reason I don't react the same when it's through an app (gmaps on android) and through a "website". I didn't expect my own weirdness.
It was a bit distracting when I accidentally turned this on in navigation mode. It made my commute much more fun, but I ended up driving all over the city and was very late for work.
It takes me to a random location somewhere in the world (St Petersburg, Some place in China or Argentine etc.)
Not sure if Google understands the idea behind April Fools.
