Given the new image mismatch penalty, is watermarking considered "cloaking"?

[FedeEinhorn]

Google has released a new penalty called "Image mismatch". Which actually penalizes sites that show images to Google than are not the same as the ones offered to users when accessing the site.

Although I agree with those sites that the image is completely different that the one shown in image search, lately I've seen lots of big sites using some king of watermark or layer that reads something like "To see the high quality of this image, click here" in order to "force" the user to visit the site hosting the image.

Considering the latest changes to Google's image search, which made lots of sites lose their "image search traffic", are these techniques considered part of the new penalty Google is applying? Or does it only apply to the first scenario when the image is completely different?

You can read more on this new penalty here.

[dotfly]

What I can tell your from the point of a big webshop is that we had to remove all our watermarks (it was just our logo for protection against copyright infringements through our competititors) within 3 business days to avoid to be banned from Google Shopping.

So this issue shows the direction Google moves on regarding the image search...

If, what you describe, is just the first step, then this will or even is the next one.

I would avoid this kind of watermarks as well...