For example, it is perfectly acceptable and normal to walk into a dealer's public showroom and ask questions about a product, such as cost and performance. When you do this, you need not identify yourself as a TIer since you are asking for information freely offered to the general public. When you obtain publicly available competitive information from a third party such as a dealer, you should mark the source on the document and the date received so it is clear that you did not receive the material directly from a TI competitor. Pricing is a particularly sensitive area. Many countries, including the United States, are stringent about preventing collusion.
Collusion is an agreement for illegal, deceitful or fraudulent purposes.
You should never discuss pricing practices with a competitor. In fact, you should never seek to gain competitive information directly from a competitor. There are companies that provide benchmarking services to clients such as TI, so that communications directly between competitors can be avoided. Before engaging the services of such a company, be sure to check with TI Legal. However, there are legal and ethical limitations that must be considered.