macos – Why are my updates being managed by swscan.apple.com?

I would like to find a well-substantiated answer to WHY this is appearing, not simply claims about WHAT it is that appear in this other question’s answers. It is really creepy (for someone who owns their own computer and is not using a company-managed computer) to suddenly see that an outside force is managing some aspect of your OS. Coming from Apple, no less, the original anti-Big Brother company of the famous 1984 ad.

I don’t want Apple “managing” any part of my computer without my foreknowledge and understanding of what they are doing and why.

Since “why” is somewhat broad, I would accept an explanation that is based on procedure (the exact series of steps that will make it appear and disappear) or purpose (it appears because Apple is doing blah blah blah), but I would prefer both. If you make a claim about purpose it should either have evidence behind it, or should make sense of the weird message in a way that rings truer than any alternative. And the explanation of purpose should include why Apple is taking over management of this aspect of my computer. An explanation of procedure could simply explain what I did that permitted Apple to think they had this right.

I realize of course that an explanation of purpose might include the claim that they’re not actually “managing” anything in the sense that a company would (where a company controls administrative decisions the your computers it manages) but such a claim should be backed up.