Eric, your personal habits for using LISTSERV are essentially irrelevant.
 
Whether or not *you* review lists to find out whether or not
someone is on them, people do it.
 
Whether or not *you* review lists to get header information, people do it.
 
Remember, with the state of the documentation (which frequently exists only
in the archives of LSTSRV-L), what people know about LISTSERV may be wildly
behind the state of the code.
 
It seems to me that you are denigrating the privacy issue far too much with
your "tongue in cheek" response to Thomas.  The issue of the remote
owner's right to control the list versus the local postmaster's responsibility
to keep the names private versus the lack of contractual control over the
remove owner should not just be laughed away, either.
Certainly, if I were Thomas and I was concerned about a remote owner's
ethical maturity (i.e., his or her willingness to maintain the privacy of
the list subscribers), then I would probably take one of two actions,
based on the level of my concern:
 
  A. Get a signed statement of understanding from the remote owner,
     stating he or she understands the privacy issue and will respect
     the same.
  B. Refuse to allow remote list owners, and insist on having only local
     list owners.  I don't know for sure what effect this would have on
     a peered list, where a list owner adds someone to the list and the
     add request is forwarded to a list where he or she is not the owner.
 
Richard