[3np]

Words do go a long way and can make the distinction clear for potential customers.

As an example, in Sweden, a country with historically strong consumer-protection regulation, you are not allowed to market something as "gratis" (free) if you need to pay to receive it. You can say something is "included" or "receive X without additional cost when buying Y", but free needs to be truly free of cost. You are also not allowed to say "the [best/fastest/strongest]" etc without pointing to an independent party backing it up. Carlsberg gets around this with "probably the best beer in the world", for example. They would not be allowed to drop the "probably", and it would take more than some random magazine or website to address that.

It does make a real difference in businesses ability to manipulate consumer expectations.

I agree with OP that requiring "buy" to mean actual transfer of ownership without hooks would make a huge difference.