Amazon web serviceという、Amazonのアフィリエイトの一種みたいなものがあるのですが、 どうしても、出力するURLの&の部分が%26となってしまうので、Amazon web serviceの 掲示板で訊いたところ、以下の回答をもらったのですが・・・
The reason is that the ampersand character can not be sent in XML because it is treated as a special character. We URL-encode it so that we can send well-formed XML.
And you don't have to URL-decode these "%26"s. We are handling the character correctly so that we don't lose any information you send back to us.