Minor issue
This isn't something that is going to bother me, nor is it very significant. If you simply phone the hotel direct then provided you know what you're doing you WILL get a lower room rate than through the webscraping ops.
What's a lot more significant is the morning "ring around" that virtually all hotels do.
In short you phone every hotel in the area and ask what their occupancy levels for that evening are. You then set your minimum room rate accordingly.
I've never heard of any hotel/chain that doesn't actively participate in this activity. Its been standard practice in the UK (and USA) for longer than I've been alive.
As an aside I can understand why hotels are so sensitive about online rates. I've seen the way arseholes like laterooms.com operate - they NEVER confirm that the room is available, nor do they confirm the rates WITH THE HOTEL. All the hotel gets is a fax (yes really) which has a number on it that nobody ever answers, so the upshot is you end up with guests turning up when you have no rooms and/or the room rate has increased due to high occupancy.
I've yet to find a webscraping operation that will give you a lower rate than the simple telephone and frankly I'd rather pay the hotel direct rather than some middleman who doesn't give a shit about you, the hotel or anything other than their commission. People that use them are idiots.