Clearly. But I guess it is not outright proven that they are technically buying links. Though they would likely fall under some form of bad behavior in Google's

Clearly. But I guess it is not outright proven that they are technically buying links. Though they would likely fall under some form of bad behavior in Google's eyes. And, buying or otherwise, I am not sure what the mechanism is for bringing this to Googles attention. I doubt there is another acquisition channel for a project like this that would compare to SEO (and not just Google).