Such guidelines do not limit a dealer's discretion to advertise a new vehicle at any price if the dealer is not seeking DMA/CMA Funds. Furthermore, the dealer is free to charge customers any price it chooses, in its absolute discretion, for a vehicle. Martin goes on to identify the central bone of contention: The development of third party websites used for advertising is not any different than advertising pricing in a traditional newspaper or on TV. And here, American Honda has something of a point. Whereas TrueCar's price curve is a pure reporting tool, simply reflecting otherwise available data, it's not entirely unfair for Honda to characterize TrueCar's service to dealer partners as an advertising service. In practice, the only real difference between this service and any other form of advertising is that TrueCar only gets paid if a car gets sold at the "guaranteed lowest" price offered by one of its dealer partners.