Quoted for truth. An algorithmic fluctuation does not just "happen" and only affect one TLD. There's obviously something going on with .info's. I personally believe it's just that .info domains are put under harsher scrutiny when they're new. So the "spammy" threshold kinda just goes down. Obviously we're not going to get any straight info from Google about this though.
if it is true that Google discriminates against .info domains, that is not really nice of Google or very fair if a webmaster is working really hard on his website but he is low income and might be having trouble affording to pay for everything so he buys a .info for a little less so he can afford to eat another few meals and then google will punish him for his domain even though he is totally innocent that is just wrong of google to do that, but if they do do that, the very least they should do is put out some kind of official statement warning that poor webmaster that his choice of domain will result in greater scrutiny and potential slowdown of his website that he is pouring is heart and soul into
The above could very well be true. I've personally found that ALL my .info domains take their time to rank in the SERPS, let alone even get indexed. I don't waste time with .info's anymore though. .com is the way to go