I had some problems setting PHP values for shared hosting on 1and1 and the suggested way from their FAQ using php.ini didn’t work for me. Here are the settings in .htaccess that worked for me:

AddType x-mapp-php5 .php

# PHP 4, Apache 1
<IfModule mod_php4.c>
php_value magic_quotes_gpc 0
php_value register_globals 0
php_value session.auto_start 0
</IfModule>

# PHP 4, Apache 2
<IfModule sapi_apache2.c>
php_value magic_quotes_gpc 0
php_value register_globals 0
php_value session.auto_start 0
</IfModule>

# PHP 5, Apache 1 and 2
<IfModule mod_php5.c>
php_value magic_quotes_gpc 0
php_value register_globals 0
php_value session.auto_start 0
</IfModule>

This instructs the server to use PHP5 and the configuration below is turning off the magic quotes, register globals and session auto start features.