I still feel this is a dark pattern. It's attempting to keep engagement on the website and to prevent direct linking of underlying images. Direct linking images

I still feel this is a dark pattern. It's attempting to keep engagement on the website and to prevent direct linking of underlying images. Direct linking images costs the server without providing sufficient marketing. You see a lot of different techniques employed to prevent image interaction. This is one such option. The fact that they then implemented "Open in Window" rather than allowing the browser to handle it means they know they're affecting functionality the user wants and are choosing to provide an option that isn't the browser default. Why? It's certainly to their benefit. If it were to the user's benefit then it would be standard across all websites rather than provided by the browser by default.