Difference in delivery of special char via HTML page over SSL. Encoding rules?

When dishing out HTML having a special character like half fraction

<li>½ tsp salt</li&开发者_Python百科gt;  [HTTP]

it shows fine over HTTP. We are not explicitly encoding it as we should be: &

However, the same HTML, when delivered over an SSL connection reveals the character as garbled with question marks in the source (using same browser) like so:

<li>?? tsp salt</li>  [HTTPS]

Despite the fact that we should be encoding these entities properly, this is not what the question is about ( we know how to solve that problem ).

Can anybody explain how the SSL encoding works such that there's a difference in delivery of the same special character over HTTP vs HTTPS, in the same browser?

More Info:

• We're using IIS7 and a certificate from GeoTrust.
• Any browser can be used to show the difference in SSL mode vs standard HTTP

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SSL won't make any difference here. The problem may be coincident with the use of SSL, but it isn't SSL that is causing the problem.