Looking in the version of CGI.pm that I have on my server, it shows the following:

sub parse_params {
    my($self,$tosplit) = @_;
    my(@pairs) = split(/[&;]/,$tosplit);
    my($param,$value);
   etc.
[download]

The use of the & or ; in the split should mean that CGI will work for browsers using & to separate pairs as well as working for browsers using ; to separate pairs.

Claude