You emphasized Google, but you should have emphasized apparently, because nowhere in the actual email is the OP's conspiracy theory about Google mentioned (or even the word Google!). It's quite likely they noticed a penalty and are just going through all their back links to find shady content.
Re:Google is Breaking the Internet
by ForHackernews on Sunday May 18, 2014 @04:59PM
(#7764403)
Sure, this is all hearsay and second- and third-hand information, and the article is really sparse on details.
> It's quite likely they noticed a penalty...
Yes, and where would they have noticed that penalty?
> Yes, and where would they have noticed that penalty?
In a drop in incoming traffic, so with whatever they're using for analytics.
In all honesty it's probably just a new SEO consultant trying to clean up past sins and move on with whatever the latest grey hat strategy is.
IMO it's a gross overreaction to a form letter that a high percentage of webmasters have received.
Yes, it most certainly did!
From the article:
> Apparently Google convinced them, via their [read: Google's] Webmaster Tools portal, that the link looked “unnatural”, and that they should use the [Google] Link Disavow Tool to discredit the link.
(emphasis added)