I can't believe a VC backed company has done this.
Why? Admittedly, I'm not too familiar with how VC works, but I'm not entirely sure how being able to convince VCs of profitability would be a good enough filter for people to determine whether or not a VC backed company would do bad things to improve their profitability.
VC's should keep a close eye on the marketing efforts of the companies they back, particularly if their main strategy depends on SEO.
Most SEOs will take the quickest route possible to game Google and that could put a company in grave danger.
Well, what's funny about it is that Rap Genius has done the one thing that Matt Cutts says you should do, which is make a lyrics site which is head and shoulders better than the competition.