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.
Cookie information
On Virgin.com we use cookies to help us make the experience on the site better. Cookies are small files which are sent back and forth with
web pages which can be used to identify that you have previously visited a site, or to store small bits of information locally with you. If
you want to know more about what cookies are and how to control them, AboutCookies.org is a
great resource, or read on to see what we use cookies for.
What cookies do you use?
We only set a few cookies ourselves, but when we include content from other sites (like Facebook or Twitter), they also get the opportunity
to set cookies, to help them serve their content better. We've broken down the main uses of cookies you'll see on the site below, and what
they are used for, but we can't guarantee that we'll have listed every cookie you might get from a third party - they can change them at any time
as their needs change.
Cookies for Measuring Web Traffic
We make use of a tool from Google called Google analytics which tells us about the way people are using Virgin.com. It uses cookies to detect
that someone has been to the site before, so that we can see how often people return to the site, how long they stay, and where on Virgin.com they
tend to go. We use this to try to work out what kind of experience they're having on the site, so we can make it better. More...
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.
Cookies From Social Networks
Because Virgin (and Richard!) have a strong presence on various social networks, we try and make it as easy as possible to share content
and to see what content is popular on those networks. For that reason we include recommendations from Facebook, tweets from Twitter, content from
Google+ and add buttons to allow people to easily share to those networks. We also use Facebook to power the commenting functionality on the site.
When we include these social 'plugins', it gives those sites the flexibility to use cookies. They can't read any cookies we set from Virgin.com,
and we can't read any cookies they set, but it lets them do the same kind of traffic measuring that we do on the rest of Virgin.com, and it also
lets them know whether you're logged in. For example, if you're logged in to Facebook, read a post by Richard Branson and want to make a comment, you can do that straight
away without having to log in again - we never know whether you're logged in as not, as you communicate directly with Facebook, through their plugins
on our site. More...
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.
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.
Cookies For Adverts
We have a number of spots around the site that show advertisments for companies in the Virgin Group. These are managed through a system
called Google Doubleclick For Publishers. We use this for the obvious things, like the banner advertisments, but also for more unusual purposes
like the logos of the Featured Companies on the homepage. Doubleclick make use of cookies in order to track who has seent what adverts, in order
to track which adverts are working better. More...
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.
Cookies for Logging In
Virgin staff can register and log in to Virgin.com, and when they do we use cookies to track that they have logged in and what user they are. More...
Virgin.com Login
To track whether users are logged in, we use the following cookies:
- Name: virginsessid
- Typical content: a code representing your current login session
- Expires: When you close the browser
Cookies for Content
Sometimes we include content from other sites in our updates, most notably YouTube videos. When we do this, YouTube may store
cookies in order to track how people are watching videos from their site. More...
Virgin.com Login
To track whether users are logged in, we use the following cookies:
- Name: ACTIVITY
- Typical content: A number representing the time
- Expires: When you close the browser
- Name: HSID
- Typical content: An identifier
- Expires: 10 years
- Name: LOGIN_INFO
- Typical content: An identifier
- Expires: 10 years
- Name: PREF
- Typical content: Some information flags
- Expires: 1 week
- Name: SID
- Typical content: An identifier
- Expires: 10 years
- Name: SSID
- Typical content: An identifier
- Expires: 10 years
How can I manage my cookies?
You can control how your web browser deals with cookies by changing your browser settings. AboutCookies.org has
a great guide on how to do this for all the major browsers, and a lot of other information about cookies.
Can I use the Do Not Track preference?
We respect a browser setting known as Do Not Track, which works the same way as opting out of cookies on our site.
You can learn more about Do Not Track and how to enable or disable it on your browser on the DoNotTrack.us site.
What if I have a question?
Still can't find what you're looking for? No problem, just drop us a line and we'll do our best to help.
