> Any conspiracy theorists interested in looking at whether this is a
> government effort in the US to assure that all calls are traceable?
No, it's simply that toll free numbers have always had unblockable
caller id. The concept behind it is that if you paid for a call, you
had the right to know who is calling you.
Some companies used it to monitor devices. For example, when an oil tank
got low the furnace controller would "phone home" and they could identify
where to deliver the oil by the phone number.
Unfortunately one company went out of business and never disconnected the
furnaces. The new owner of the number got random calls from hungry furnaces.
Or someone would just call to hear the voice on the phone:
