According to this report they are.
But it is wrong – I think.
First, if a website does work when an ad blocker is installed that could be because the web designers have put in a guard against ad blockers that stops the website working. Think of it like this: on some DVDs you can’t fast-forward through the commercials and if you try it just starts them again. No one would say that trying to skip them “breaks” your DVD player. So the findings of this report might just be: some websites are designed not to work if an ad blocker is installed.
Second, a website not working is not the same as the internet breaking. That’s like saying, “My computer is broken” when your Microsoft Word shuts down unexpectedly.
Third, an ad block may stop a website from appearing in a user’s browsers in the way the designers of the website intended but that does not mean that it is broken from the perspective of a user. If users has made an informed choice to install an ad blocker, it is most likely because they want their browser to filter out some content. This might mean that some useful content is also filtered out but that’s the choice they have made. I’m sure many users consider this a minor inconvenience that is more than covered by the benefits of blocking ads or they wouldn’t use them.
Forth, and a bit ore technically, I take issue with this conclusion: “publishers whose content we access have the right to protect the Integrity and Delivery of their web content from any form of manipulation, change or censorship”. Really? Publishers have the right to deliver web content without any form of manipulation, change or censorship? Do you really mean that? So cyber bullying is okay? Isis videos? Child pornography? Good luck arguing that with the Chinese authorities? What is the content includes malware? Presumably you don’t mean this. You mean publishers have the right to deliver ads without interference.
Finally, it is a bit disingenuous to say that a webpage should be “delivered to a user as intended by a publisher”. To my knowledge, most ad blockers try to block third party content that is not provided by a publisher but one of their partners often without any knowledge or intention on the part of the publisher. I doubt that journalists are losing sleep that their articles aren’t read alongside ads served through Google.
Perhaps if digital marketers understood the difference between what they want to show audiences and what audiences want to watch there would be no need for ad blockers in the first place.
Social Studies of Marketing 