Google April Fool's prank backfires big time

Google is acknowledging that it pranked itself after an April Fool's Day Gmail tweak angered some people who use Google's email for work.|
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK - Google is acknowledging that it pranked itself after an April Fool's Day Gmail tweak angered some people who use Google's email for work.

The company added a button to its email service that allowed users to fire out a minion GIF, a character from the animated film "Despicable Me," which would drop a microphone and then mute responses to whatever email the user had sent.

The Gmail Help Forum on Thursday was soon populated by angry users who say they unintentionally attached a minion dropping a mic during important business communications.

Google Inc. apologized and turned off the feature, saying that due to a bug, the mic drop "inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs."

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