It's your analogy, that the research in question is similar to fire alarm drills, that the researcher is analogous to the people who conduct the drill. I'm merely pointing out, that one cannot randomly conduct fire alarm drills on properties that don't belong to them.
The researchers don't own the websites, and they certainly don't own the internet. What entitles them to conduct the "drill"?
In this situation, the "researcher" is the person conducting the drills. Which are way more frequent than these emails.