IE 6 on Windows XP Pro - Randomly Blocking Cookies

I'm having difficulties with IE 6 randomly blocking cookies on my
website, http://bargainbookstores.com <http://bargainbookstores.com/> .


 

This issue only appears to exist with Windows XP Pro and IE 6 w/ privacy
set to medium or higher.  My site uses an apache server running a Miva
Merchant shopping cart.  My static pages (index.htm, etc) do not
generate or use cookies.  Miva Merchant does use cookies to link
specific customers to their basket contents.

 

The cookie blocking symbol often appears when opening the index page
(www.bargainbookstores.com <http://www.bargainbookstores.com/>  or
bargainbookstores.com) and indicates that it is blocking cookies for all
my page link graphic files.  

 

The problem links stay within my domain (example:
http://bargainbookstores.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=SFNT
<http://bargainbookstores.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=SFNT&Store_Co
de=bbs> &Store_Code=bbs  or http://bargainbookstores.com/au.htm)

 

I'm concerned about this issue because some customers are having trouble
checking out and others are seeing the "do not enter" symbol at the
bottom of IE 6.  I fear that this will chase away some customers.

 

I don't have a P3P in place but have noticed that the majority of other
ecommerce sites don't either and I don't see the same problem occurring
with those sites.  

 

Does anyone have an idea as to what is causing this?

 

I would like to put a P3P in place but I am unable to do so because my
host (Interland.com) refuses to add the proper line of code to the
Apache server, furthermore, Miva Merchant refuses to accept the P3P CP
data from Apache if correctly configured.   Any Ideas on working around
this problem?

 

Thanks for your help,

 

Ralf Scharnowski

BargainBookStores.com

Email: rscharnowski@bargainbookstores.com

Website: http://bargainbookstores.com