This may not be so farfetched. The very reputable site MacInTouch reported something similar, although not the sharing of the information. See the November 12 post on its
home page.
Forgt to post this earlier... The MacInTouch article reports on the same event as the OP's linked doc,
but without the implied "evil" ramifications.
More: It also links to the OP's linked doc.
Something pretty disconcerting, apparently beyond just a server slowdown, happened, and an explanation from Apple is in order.