It may be worthwhile to make it an optional feature, so that those "privacy minded" users can opt to let MS store their homepage URL somewhere other than the spot where a user can edit it or just reset the homepage to something generic. But again, this would need to be an option users would ENABLE, just like setting the default home page yourself. Otherwise you know those privacy people would be crying about MS using the non-private option by default. Just like people that complain about checkboxes for receiving mail or submitting anonymous information while completely optional are still set to do those things by default and the user must make an effort to disable them.

I think, sadly, this is just the way things are on the internet today.

Actually, the best solution to this would be to disallow setting the browser's home page anywhere except in the browser preferences panel... but that's a completely different discussion. ;)