MacworldYouve gotta love these court cases against major tech companies if only for the discovery and testimony that come out because of them.Turns out Eddy Cue still works at Apple. A few years of not seeing a guy dance onstage at a keynote can make you forget.Eddy Cue reveals the three reasons Apple wont build a search engineOf course, Apples not going to build a search engine! We wouldnt build one if you gave us $20 billion! Which, uh, is what Google gives us every year to not build a search engine.Cues comments come as the result of the U.S. Department of Justices suit against Google which accuses the company of holding a monopoly in online search, something it says Apple aids and abetts through the afore-joked deal. The court believes that, without the deal, Apple might develop its own search engine. Possibly called Ping. Can neither confirm nor deny.Cue has three reasons why it wouldnt, which the Macalope will summarize for you:Apple is a busy company! It has no time to develop a search business! Its too busy rolling around in piles of cash!Search seems like a lousy business to get into right now what with the AI and such.Advertising is only a hobby for Apple, not a core business! Also we hate advertising because it inevitably leads to privacy violations. Wed prefer to just do a little advertising and let others do the big-time privacy violatin.None of these seem super convincing. Naturally, Apple would just rather have the $20 billion. That seems obvious. So, yeah, the company doesnt want to make a search engine. Would you rather go find a job digging ditches or win the lottery? Seems like if you won the lottery you could get the satisfaction of digging a few ditches on your own time.The AI argument isnt a terrible one, but the company certainly could build a search engine if it wanted to, if only by acquiring an existing one to build on which surprise! it was looking into just a few years ago. Its worth pointing out that Apple didnt have mapping capabilities, either, and it managed to create one, albeit not without some pains along the way. Is Maps a core business? Hardly. For that matter, is TV? Or weather? Apple bought Dark Sky. Internet search certainly seems just as core to iOS as weather does, even if the former comes with the ickiness of advertising.IDGMeanwhile, in the DOJs suit against Apple, the government contends that Apples deal with Google puts the lie to the companys assertions that it cares about its customers privacy. How could Apple care about privacy, the argument goes, if it uses Google which does not care at all about privacy as the default search engine?Quod! Erat! Demonstrandum!Its not an argument devoid of any logic but, while Apple certainly isnt a victim here No. Please. Stop throwing money at us. Oh, my, this is truly a horrible turn of events. Google is literally the name that is synonymous with online search. Apple could use Bing or DuckDuckGo as the default, but most consumers, for better or worse, expect Google and would likely say What the heck is this nonsense? if Apple set the default to anything but.But to Cues point, if Apple made its own search engine, it would be doing the privacy-violating instead of Google. If search must include advertising, then it is probably better to not do it yourself. Like, if U.S. foreign policy has to involve murder, the Macalopes not moving out of the country, but hes also not running out to join a CIA hit squad.He doesnt know what youve heard.The horny one supposes its probably naive to suggest a search engine not be run with ads and maybe just delivers the best results possible without 3-10 things at the top someone paid to put there.Yeah, thats probably naive, when theres all that money to be made.The obvious answer is to simply not have a default at all; just pop up a dialog box asking people to pick their favorite search engine on setup. But Google doesnt like that answer because iOS is such a big part of its search business and Apple doesnt like that answer because it wouldnt get that sweet $20 billion. Plus, most people would probably just pick Google out of habit anyway, even though its increasingly just not a good user experience.It seems Cue doth protest too much. All the way to the bank.