I'm a little torn with this. On the one hand, it's messed up that Google forces these companies to basically hand over their data, as you put it, but on the other hand, if they don't push companies to do things like this, single-visit webpages like lyrics and recipes inevitably become ad-infested, SEO-driven trash.
Maybe if they used a carrot in addition to the stick, it'd feel less sleezy, but I'm not sure what exactly that would look like.
other hand, if they don't push companies to do things like this, single-visit webpages like lyrics and recipes inevitably become ad-infested, SEO-driven trash
The opposite may also be true. If Google sent visitors to these sites instead of displaying their content without compensation, the sites wouldn't be so desperate to extract every last penny out of the reduced number of people who click through to them.
Maybe if they used a carrot in addition to the stick, it'd feel less sleezy, but I'm not sure what exactly that would look like.