Thanks for your comment. Consider my response below to apply to the thread, not just to your comment specifically.

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I don't think your downvotes relate to criticising Apple per se; they're due to a poor argument style.

I'll admit I haven't invested my best efforts into my comments on this thread, but where other than an Apple thread would every single comment by one person be downvoted beyond -4? It's not worth the effort if one knows one's comments will be grayed out anyway.

Even mpyne's much more thorough comment was downvoted, so it's clear that the downvotes aren't strictly targeting poor argumentation. Furthermore, if that were the case, there's no reason to target every single comment by a person equally, as inevitably some of them must be better argued than others.

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then shifting the goalposts when anyone tries to refute you

I never shifted any goalposts. All I said was that it's difficult to reconcile user IBM's claim that Apple wants to be the "privacy" company with their actual behavior, then provided clarifications when prompted.

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You've been thoroughly shot down.

Where? I see lots of disagreement, but no disproof. Show me the counterargument of the form, "Apple can be trusted despite these events because...".

It's easy to shoot somebody down. Just yell louder. What I've yet to see is a solid refutation to any of the things I said. A downvote is argumentatively equivalent to yelling, "Shut up!" So let's see how many "Shut ups" there are, and how many refutations.

It takes 5 counted downvotes to bring a comment from +1 to -4, where all of my other comments currently lie (I don't know how the HN anti-voting-ring algo turns clicks into actual downvotes, so there may be even more). However, beyond -4 points the comments can still get lighter. I'll assume that #aeaeae is the original -4 comment, since it's the darkest of my comments on this thread. I also have comments at #bebebe, #cecece and #dddddd. So I'll count #ae as 5, #be as 6, #ce as 7, and #dd as 8 or more.

Original comment - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7865747 - #dddddd - 8+
Location history - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7865843 - #bebebe - 6
[Tracking] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7866011 - #dddddd - 8+
[Logging] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7866147 - #dddddd - 8+
Physical access - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7866013 - #dddddd - 8+
Cloud sync - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7866132 - #cecece - 7
Good citizen - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7865835 - #dddddd - 8+
Worthy of trust - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7865835 - #cecece - 7
Thanks, everyone - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7866375 - #aeaeae - 5
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Total: 65+ downvotes

That's 65 or more counts of "Shut up," not including mpyne's comment. How many actual comments?

Still don't know - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7865810
This again? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7865877
Tracking semantics - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7866094
User's devices - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7865867
Do you have proof - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7866098
Orthogonal - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7865778
Big corps not good - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7865871
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Total: 7 comments (4 one-liners)

Only seven comments, four of which were one-liners with less content than most of my own comments. The remaining comments are mostly distractions from the actual claim, that Apple's past behavior doesn't lend itself to trust with one's privacy.

So again, where's the refutation? MAC address randomization is awesome, but why can I trust Apple to take the position of the "privacy" company?