I apologize for mixing technical jargon to my earlier texts; some of it was directed more towards the people responsible for this website's background functionality rather than the casual users.
No, I did not ask Maksim Abramov for a permission to post a link to his photograph on my Facebook page. I don't have to do that as long as the content is freely accessible and legally available on a public website such as Shipspotting.com. However, downloading the photograph and posting it on my Facebook page without permission would have been a copyright infringement.
However, I acknowledge that I probably should have not used his photograph as an example in my earlier post; I have replaced it with one of my own.
Maksim's photograph was actually the reason why I proposed adding the Twitter preview functionality to Shipspotting.com. The ice-strengthened container ship Venta Maersk passing ice fishermen in Saint Petersburg would have fallen within the interests of my followers, but as the link would have been "text only" without a visual cue, it would have been lost in the feed and thus I didn't bother tweeting it.
I understand your sentiment with regard to linking, but consider that we are talking about the most basic functionality of the World Wide Web. The only way to retain absolute control of one's photographs is to not post them online at all. Some people do that and that's their right, but many don't and that's why we can have websites like Shipspotting.com in the first place. In a way, it's a calculated risk: you're not giving up your rights, but someone may copy your photographs without your permission. Or post a link to them.
Of course, the "link preview" I have discussed here is a more recent invention compared to just a bare URL and relates to more advanced and dynamic web platforms. Few years ago there was discussion about its legality and introducing a possible EU "link tax" for social media and the like. I don't know where that has gone since then but people fought hard against such restrictions. I might have also signed the petition against it.