Do you mean familysearch.org, alias the LDS (or, a long time ago, "the Mormons")?
As for charging for something that's free: sadly, it's legal. A popular scam for government websites. The creaming organisation will claim they're "providing a service", and that's what you're paying for. Same with charging extra for something - I think Ancestry used to do that (maybe still do?) for, e. g., birth certificaates.