How does Virgin.com work?

What is Virgin.com

Virgin.com is the home of the Virgin Group online - we bring you the latest News from Virgin companies all round the world, keep you up to date on our goals for more sustainable living in People and Planet, bring you the latest new bands in our music show and site, Virgin Red Room, and bring you some of the best entrepreneurial news and bloggers in our Entrepreneur section.

We also host Richard Branson's blog, and links to Richard's books and social media, as well as a growing history of Virgin. Of course you might just be looking for some great deals and offers, so you could sign up to our regular deals and updates newsletter.

I just want to find a Virgin Company...

If you just want info on a particular Virgin Business, including their website link, no problem, there's a number of ways to get to there.

  • Use the main site navigation. Pointing your mouse over the Companies link above will show you a list of Virgin Businesses in that industry. Simply click on the Virgin Business to go straight to them.
  • Use the Virgin Companies A-Z listing. Here you'll find a complete list of Virgin Businesses around the world, sorted by geographical region. You can also sort by product as well.
  • Use the World Map feature. For those of you that prefer a more global view of the Virgin Group.
  • Use the search tool. Type in the name of any Virgin Business in the search box and click the "Companies" tab when you get to the results.


What cookies do you use?

We use cookies to help us make the experience on the site better, in a few different ways. Though we only set a few cookies directly, we make use of some services which set their own cookies. We'll do our best to keep this page up to date so you know what is being set and why, but particularly for the social platforms like Facebook and Twitter, they can, and do, change them regularly. If you are signing in as a staff member, we will set a couple of extra cookies to allow us to deliver the functionality you request, but all the cookies listed here will apply for anyone browsing the site.

Google Analytics
Google Analytics sets cookies to help us accurately estimate the number of people visiting Virgin.com, and let us see how they're moving around the site. We use this when we make decisions on the type of content we create and how we structure the site. The cookies set up Google Analytics are below

  • Name: _utma
  • Typical content: randomly generated number
  • Expires: 2 years
  • Name: _utmb
  • Typical content: randomly generated number
  • Expires: 30 minutes
  • Name: _utmc
  • Typical content: randomly generated number
  • Expires: when user exits browser
  • Name: _utmz
  • Typical content: randomly generated number + info on how the site was reached (e.g. directly or via a link, organic search or paid search)
  • Expires: 6 months

For more information about Google Analytics and the cookies it sets, please take a look at this breakdown of their cookies.

Facebook
We use several Facebook social plugins on Virgin.com, including the Like button, Facebook comments, and recommendations. Facebook will access some cookies if you have been to Facebook previously. If you haven't visited Facebook, no cookies will be added.

  • Name: act
  • Typical content: a number
  • Expires: when user exits browser
  • Name: c_user
  • Typical content: a number
  • Expires: when user exits browser
  • Name: csm
  • Typical content: a number
  • Expires: when user exits browser
  • Name: datr
  • Typical content: a string of random characters
  • Expires: 2 years
  • Name: lu
  • Typical content: a string of random characters
  • Expires: 2 years
  • Name: p
  • Typical content: a number
  • Expires: when user exits browser
  • Name: presence
  • Typical content: a number
  • Expires: when user exits browser

For more information about how Facebook uses cookies, please see their support site.

Twitter
We make use of Twitter social plugins in order to allow following our Twitter accounts easily, share content via Twitter, and to display the latest tweet for The Virgin Red Room, Virgin and Richard Branson. Twitter makes use of cookies to improve it's own service.

  • Name: guest_id
  • Typical content: a string of characters
  • Expires: 2 years
  • Name: k
  • Typical content: some numbers
  • Expires: 1 week
  • Name: _twitter_sess
  • Typical content: a string of random characters
  • Expires: when user exits browser
  • Name: pid
  • Typical content: a string of random characters
  • Expires: 2 years
  • Name: external_referer
  • Typical content: a string of random characters
  • Expires: 30 minutes
  • Name: original_referer
  • Typical content: a string of random characters
  • Expires: when user exits browser
  • Name: js
  • Typical content: a 1 or 0
  • Expires: 30 minutes

You can read more about how Twitter users cookies in their privacy policy.

Google Doubleclick
One of the ways that we link to the different Virgin companies on Virgin.com is via advertising positions. These include banner ads, but also the logos of Featured Companies on the front page. This allows us to track which adverts are doing well, and it also makes it easy for companies in the Virgin Group to give us assets to put in those slots. We use a platform called Doubleclick for Publishers, which is part of Google's advertising system.

  • Name: __gads
  • Typical content: an anonymous identifier
  • Expires: 2 years
  • Name: _drt_
  • Typical content: randomly generated number
  • Expires: 30 minutes
  • Name: id
  • Typical content: an anonymous identifier
  • Expires: 2 years

For more information about Doubleclick, privacy, and opting out of ad tracking, see this Google page on ad privacy.

Stumbleupon
We include a stumbleupon plugin on many of our news and blog post pages to allow viewers to share links via that service. That plugin sets the following cookies.

  • Name: su_c
  • Typical content: an anonymous identifier
  • Expires: 10 years
  • Name: su_conf
  • Typical content: randomly generated number
  • Expires: 10 years
  • Name: su_visitorid
  • Typical content: an anonymous identifier
  • Expires: 10 years
  • Name: su_bc
  • Typical content: an number
  • Expires: 6 months

For more information about StumbleUpon, see their privacy policy.

Google+
We include a Google+ plugin on many of our news and blog post pages to allow viewers to share links via that service. That plugin sets the following cookies, though you will get a different mix of cookies depending on whether you are logged in to Google and Google+ or not.

  • Name: APISID
  • Typical content: an anonymous identifier
  • Expires: 10 years
  • Name: HSID
  • Typical content: an anonymous identifier
  • Expires: 10 years
  • Name: PREF
  • Typical content: an anonymous identifier
  • Expires: 2 years
  • Name: SAPISID
  • Typical content: an anonymous identifier
  • Expires: 10 years
  • Name: SID
  • Typical content: an anonymous identifier
  • Expires: 10 years
  • Name: SS
  • Typical content: an anonymous identifier
  • Expires: 10 years
  • Name: SSID
  • Typical content: an anonymous identifier
  • Expires: 10 years
  • Name: BEAT
  • Typical content: an anonymous identifier
  • Expires: 1 hour
  • Name: ULS
  • Typical content: an anonymous identifier
  • Expires: when user exits browser

For more information about the Google +1 button, see their privacy policy.



Still can't find what you're looking for? No problem, just drop us a line and we'll do our best to help.

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