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...

-----------------------------
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.
-----------------------------


So how I do get IE to NOT block cookies that are being served from a different domain than the order page?

Thanks
Tom

How are you cookies being writtin?

when you write a cookie you can either tell it it is only accesible from the domain that wrote it or not.

I'm not sure how it is written. Do you know how I can find out? Sorry I'm not too familar with cookies.

Thanks

Try this,
Open the script in a editor that can search.
The search for

" setcookie "


Once you find it try and post that bit of code here.

AC,

Here is the code I found, please let me know if this is the right code. Thanks!

-------------------------------------------

if ($clickvalue > 0) /// this is what we do if it is a perclick program
{
if ($storedtime <= $systemtime)
{
$q1="insert into clicks (affID,merID,adID,IP,price,proID,refURL,time,paid) values ($affID,$merID,$adID,'$ip',$clickvalue,$proID,'$re f',now(),$clickapr)";
//echo $q1;
mysql_query ($q1) or die(mysql_error());
$result=mysql_query ("SELECT CID FROM clicks where IP = '$ip' order by time desc") or die(mysql_error());
$i = mysql_fetch_row($result);
$CID = $i[0];

/* Updates the info in Affiliate Table */
update_affstats($affID,$merID);

//setcookie ("GF", "CID:$CID",time()+2592000);
//echo "Set cookie:".$CID;
//header("location:$URL");
}

}

mysql_query ("insert into clickthroughs (affID,merID,adID,IP,proID,refURL,time) values ($affID,$merID,$adID,'$ip',$proID,'$ref',now())") or die(mysql_error());
$result=mysql_query ("SELECT CTID FROM clickthroughs where IP = '$ip' order by time desc") or die(mysql_error());
$i = mysql_fetch_row($result);
$CTID = $i[0];

$cookiename="GF".$merID;
setcookie ($cookiename, "CTID:$CTID","$cookiedays");
if ($adtype == 'html')
{
print "<script language = 'javascript'> window.close(); </script>";
exit;
}

header("location:$URL");

Lets try this:

were this is:
setcookie ($cookiename, "CTID:$CTID","$cookiedays");

Add this under it
setcookie ($cookiename, "CTID:$CTID","$cookiedays",domain=".YOUROTHERDOMAI N.com");


YOUROTHERDOMAIN.com replace with your second sites domain name. Be sure to keep the first " . " in though.

So don't replace any code, just add that string in the area you specified? Is it possible to have more than one domain? Such as...

".myotherdomain.com,.myotherdomain1.com,.myotherdo main2.com"

?

Also, I talked with the affiliate software developers and they said I only need a P3P policy on the domain that runs the software (which I do). They said I should not need a domain on any of my other domains. So they said there must be a problem with my P3P policy on the software domain. However being 'new' to P3P policies, I do not know where to look for this error in order to correct it. I need a P3P/privacy policy expert here I would even hire someone to troubleshoot and fix my P3P policy if I could find an expert. Any suggestions?

Thanks
Tom

yes just place that code in were I said,, that might do the trick.

no cookies dont allow you to set multiple domains like that
THEY SHOULD THOUGH!

I can't help you when it comes to P3P hehe, I have no clue about them either

Does your settings block 3rd party cookies? I don't know if this is the default setting for IE but this is probably the issue here.

Well I use the default IE setting, which, yes, probably is the reason why the 3rd party cookies are blocked. But being that it's the default setting and most people use that setting, I need the cookies to still work, because I simply can't ask each person to change their settings just so my cookies work. Instead I need to fix it on my end. It can be done. How do affiliate networks work? Like CJ, or any of those. They should function in a similar way and need 3rd party cookies to work on their merchant's websites.