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Do you remember the excitement of your first apartment? You got to decide where things would be placed in the kitchen, how to fold the towels in the bathroom and which long distance carrier you would use. Yes, that shows my age – we had to pick a long distance carrier when I moved into my first apartment. And, if I wasn’t happy with the rate or the service, another one would be calling that evening to offer something better, likely relying on some sort of predictive dialer to make the connection.

We won’t bother to do the math to determine whether or not predictive dialers have been around as long as I have, but I do remember the point at which the fun ran out on the calls. Yes, I did get to experience some perks by jumping long distance carriers, but was it worth the sales pitch to get to the prize? Not to mention these calls were just a small percentage of the total calls I would receive.

From magazine peddlers to vacuum salesmen to cable companies, my number was on everyone’s list. I quickly went from feeling pretty important to guilty about saying no to hanging up before they finished their pitch. Once I could afford caller ID – back in the day when it wasn’t included as part of a smartphone because smartphones didn’t exist – it was easier to avoid the unwanted calls. Now, customers in the U.K. can enjoy the same kind of freedom.

According to a piece in the IB Times, companies that cold call their customers are now required to display their telephone numbers. If a company violates this law, they could see fines as high as $2.88 million, demanded by Ofcom, the communications regulator. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) can increase the fine is the company persists in making unwanted calls. This move is expected to provide consumers with more control, making the decision on whether or not they want to take a call and lodge a formal complaint if they are being harassed.

The move won’t halt cold calling, but it is expected to set a higher standard for companies who use the practice to try to drum up new business. And while some may believe this kind of marketing should be outlawed, there are others that continue to see its value and use it as an important part of their overall strategy. After all, if it didn’t work, companies wouldn’t be doing it.

For consumers, the important point is a good balance between information on the things that they want, but the opportunity to ignore messages from companies they don’t want to do business with. Is this the next best thing or will additional rules come out? We may just have to wait and see.