Hello... Well if this is correct then its identical content ... There's no "outright penalty" for being a directory, but we do value, as I'm sure you've heard, "unique, compelling content." Directories can run into the problem of not containing original information. Should the webmaster believe their site has fallen in search results, there's no reason they can't add more "unique, compelling content" to help their site rise. Google-Responds-to-Directory-Question thx malcolm
Google in penalizing sites because google want to make all money from google adwords and dont want to share with anyone. Webmasters were buying links and getting good page rank and higher SE rankings without advertising with google adwords. So google envy of them and feel jealous and so they decided to lower page rank of sites making money. Google webmaster guidelines says that when you create a new site get other sites link to you. And when you get links from other sites google says why you get links by paying money. Who is going to give quality link for free? Google says they dont just look the volume of votes a site receive but they look for quality of the site which is casting the vote. So they say link from a quality site is necesary to come higher in search engines and quality links are not free. But this is google and their search engine so they can do anything they want. All money should go into their pocket. And for that they can change rules created by themselves. Google is God of Internet........thats true and only God has the right to change rules.
I think this happened (if it is true) as a result for selling PR and mainly because google see directories as a paid form of manipulating SERPs.