Cookies & P3P Privacy Policy Problems

Won't track across multiple domains

[tomld2]

I have an affiliate program setup on my domain. This program uses cookies to track sales. I was having problems with the cookies being blocked by IE, since I didn't have a compact privacy policy. So I downloaded IBM's P3P policy maker and made a compact privacy policy. And that fixed it. But....

In my affiliate program I have TWO programs. The first one is on the same domain as the actually affiliate script (the one I talked about above) and with the policy in place it DOESN'T block cookies on that domain. But the second program is on a different domain but the cookie is still served from the affiliate script domain. So I created a policy for this domain as well and it blocks the cookies still!

I imagine it has something to do with the cookie trying to be served not being on the same domain as the order page. How can I fix this? I need to be able to run multiple affiliate programs that are all on different domains, while the affiliate script and cookies are on one domain. Any way I can do this?

My P3P compact privacy policies are fully compliant and they are supposed to work on all security settings in IE. It says...

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Satisfactory policy: this compact policy is considered satisfactory according to the rules defined by Internet Explorer 6. IE6 will accept cookies accompanied by this policy under the High, Medium High, Medium, Low, and Accept All Cookies settings.
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So how I do get IE to NOT block cookies that are being served from a different domain than the order page?

Thanks
Tom

[tedster]

From what you've described, it sounds like you are doing the all the right things. I'd say go back into your specifics and scrutinize the details.

Something is not really in the condition you are assuming it is. This is what P3P is supposed to handle, and in my experience so far, it does. So look at each piece again, knowing that something must be off.

[tomld2]

Ted,

What do you use to make your P3P policies? I just talked to the software developers and they say I only need a P3P policy on the domain that hosts the affiliate software. Not my other domains that my other affiliate programs reside on.

So apparantely, there must be a problem with my P3P policy that blocks the cookies when trying to be set on other domains. Because I run an affiliate program on the same domain that the software resides on and it doesn't block those cookies. It only blocks them on other domains.

So, I really don't know where to start to fix this problem. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Or better yet, do you know of any business that specializing in writing P3P policies and that could look at mine and fix it?

Thanks
Tom