lucy24 - 11:58 pm on Mar 12, 2013 (gmt 0)

The primary difference is whether you've got images of a product, or images in their own right.

Option Three, I guess, would be a product that is intrinsically beautiful, though it is not bought for decoration. In that case people might post, hotlink or pin pictures of your product ... but it wouldn't affect sales of the product. People who deal in antique furniture, '57 T-birds and so on might want to weigh in at this point. Does pinning help you, harm you or have no effect?

Tangential question after "D'oh!" moment
Does pinterest really use some kind of devious code? Or do they simply send a forged referer?

I went back to check with one filename I happened to remember. The referer is the specific page, not just your domain, although the domain name alone would be enough to get you past most anti-hotlinking rules.