If I’m not mistaken, paying for links is still very much against Google’s policies. Whatever weight that should carry... in my opinion you should always try to be as independent from Google as possible. It’s such a huge liability.
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).
