You could opt out of that and many people did. Opting out required contacting one entity once. In fact I seem to recall that they asked if you wanted your numbe

You could opt out of that and many people did. Opting out required contacting one entity once. In fact I seem to recall that they asked if you wanted your number listed when you got a phone line, at least in some places. It requires a tremendous amount of technical skill and diligence to opt out of the everything-is-malware hellscape we (our industry) created.