ok, back again...
I have called and spoken to a technician at the Apple Help desk here in Australia.
He told me that it seems that the security settings have been changed for the itunes store which is why majority of us are unable to access it. He told me to go and disable all Anti-Virus, Firewall and Pop Up software and this should help...I then told him that I am using itunes from work and I don't have any authority to do this!
I have expressed that Apple are losing business and I also told him that there are alot of unhappy itunes users out there. I told him that I will have to consider buying a new MP3 player. He seemed a little concerned at this and went off to speak to someone...
When he came back he told me that the problem we are all having is a FIREWALL problem. If you are getting this error, you need to remove the firewall on your Machine before itunes will let you into the store. I told him I can't do this, and he has pretty much said to me that if that's the case, then I can't access the store.
If anyone has removed the firewall on there computer, but is still having the same issue - can I suggest that you ring Apple in your country and let them know this, I am unable to remove the firewall from Company computers, so there is no chance of getting it working from my machine.
http://www.apple.com/support/contact/phone_contacts.html