Well, it seems that this is slightly going out of proportions.

You are all aware of the AML requirement by now and you are also aware of what we are asking for. Also we have very strict rules when it comes the list of documents we need and how we need them. This is of course in order to better protect everyone of us, by this I mean both client assets and Mt.Gox.

Now, as it is stipulated on our AML page that all documents that must be sent to us must be sent in the following format : JPG, PNG and PDF (See screenshot http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/195/screenshot20120217at103.png/). There is no mention at anytime of ZIP files or any other format including but not only BMP, TIFF, JPEG 2000, GIF... We hoped that this was clear enough for everyone, but apparently not.

While we are going to “rephrase” this part to make it “clearer” for everyone, we cannot and we will not accept any document sent in a ZIP file. The reason behind this request is simple : Company RULE. All files are stored on our servers and are not allowed to be stored on anyone’s computer here at Mt.Gox for obvious reasons.

We go even further in not working with ZIP files at an internal level. No ones here at Mt.Gox is allowed to transfer, use or work with ZIP files and this level of security is also applied for every documents coming form AML that will be hosted on our servers.

Sergio, please kindly send us the appropriate documents in either JPG, PNG of PDF and you will see that if your documents are indeed the appropriates ones and that everything is in order, the overall AML process will go smoothly.

No, not really, but the process is long and require a lot of effort and internal changes...

The only thing that I can tell you at this point, is that we are working on it!

More here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=64069.0;all

There is no point in fighting a system that will crush you, when you can beat (And not Bit!) the system from inside out. And who knows, once everything is done, some well established company will see the beauty of Bitcoin and may start rethinking their business model. Still, our goal is to push forward Bitcoin and make it mainstream and once a large number of transaction are made using BTCs, then... we will be able to enjoy Bitcoin's amazing features. Once again our goal as an exchange is not to think 3 month ahead, but at least 3 years ahead of things!

Like most in the community we were sad and a bit surprised to hear TradeHill's decision to halt trading. We too understand the regulatory hurdles in an intimate way, and feel that their move was conducted with the utmost integrity. We trust that they will bounce back in an even bigger way due to the strong customer following they have cultivated over the past several months.

For those of you seeking a cost effective way to move funds out of TradeHill, our partner Bitinstant has decided to help us make the migration less financially burdensom to traders. So together we are providing a zero-fee transfers from TradeHill to Mt.Gox!

Please visit this link https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=63762.0 to find more details about how to get back to trading quick and on the cheap.


Dear users,

We would like to update you on our promise to cover transfer fees for those users wishing to move their funds from TradeHill to Mt.Gox via BitInstant.

Unfortunately, while we did intend to fully cover all transfer fees for migrating TradeHill customers, an abrupt and unexpected change in TradeHill policy, most notably in their fee schedule, has forced us to revise our offer.

We now wish to offer any TradeHill customers the following:

Partial Transfer Fee Coverage: Users who transfer any amount from TradeHill to Mt.Gox via BitInstant below $800USD will have their transfer fees partially paid for  by Mt.Gox. Fees will be covered up to the value of 1.25% of the total funds transferred to Mt.Gox.

For example, if a user transfers $100USD from TradeHill to Mt.Gox via BitInstant, they will pay $1.25USD less in transfer fees.

Total Transfer Fee Coverage: Any amount greater than or equal to $800USD transferred from TradeHill to Mt.Gox via BintInstant will have all transfer fees waived by Mt.Gox.

Once again we sincerely apologize for this change to our initial offer, but TradeHill’s new policy on this matter forced us to drastically revise our proposed cost coverage.

Kind regards,

Dear Mt.Gox users,

We are glad that many of you have taken the time to review our new Terms of Service, which will be coming into effect shortly. We anticipated that there would be some concern within the community regarding both our Terms of Service and our Privacy Policy, but want to reinforce with you that these documents are a long overdue piece of legal protection, both for Mt.Gox and its users. The Terms of Service define not only what is expected of the users of Mt.Gox, but what you can expect of us, offering our customers a more transparent and stable service.

We wanted to address some specific concerns which have arisen within this thread.

I. Mt Gox doesn't have to protect your identity, and they aren't liable when they don't.

Japan has some of the most stringent personal privacy protection laws of any jurisdiction in the world, and Mt.Gox must adhere to these laws. Whilst we would like to encourage our users to read our new privacy policy in full, to address just the quoted text:

"we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site when it is outside of our control."

The pertinent point in this case is the section of text which has not been bolded - "when it is outside of our control." What this means is that we will take all possible steps to ensure the security of your personal information whilst it is within Mt.Gox's information infrastructure. Unfortunately, we are unable to guarantee that your personal information is secure when we have no control over it.

For example, many customers recently have been submitting their personal information to us by email. (Note: We strongly discourage this practice as it is the least secure form of transmission.) Emails will generally be sent from a particular public mail server, be routed throughout the internet, and eventually arrive at Mt.Gox. This clause says that we are only able to guarantee the security of that email when it is on the Mt.Gox mail server, not when you are drafting it on your gmail account, or whilst it routes through parts of the internet we have no control over.

II. You may request it, that doesn't mean we do anything about your request.

Unfortunately, we are compelled by Japanese and American banking laws to retain our customers' data for at least five years as part of anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing regulations. Most (if not all) banking institutions will have similar clauses in their Terms of Service, but we do sincerely apologize to our customers that we are unable to avoid enforcing this rule.

This is also the reason that were are obliged to include this clause: "Transactions may be frozen until the identity check has been considered satisfactory by Mt. Gox as required by applicable money laundering laws. Mt. Gox may request additional identification information at any time at the request of any competent authority or by application of any applicable law or regulation."

As we are sure you are aware, a number of Bitcoin Exchanges recently have been forced to close down because of regulatory and legal issues they have encountered. Mt.Gox has instituted these Terms of Service as one step towards our goal of becoming a fully licensed, regulated business, which will not only guarantee the safety of our customers' funds, but will, we believe, be an important step forwards for Bitcoin as a whole.

III. To address one last point, "You have to protect your identity, and YOU are liable for MtGox's losses." The below is an extract of the Terms and Conditions which users who bank with the Bank of America must agree to. We hope you'll agree that our terms are, by comparison, fair and straightforward.

"Bank of America shall assign to each Authorized Person a unique User ID (“User ID”) and a corresponding password and/or other access codes (each, an “Access Code”) to enable Authorized Persons to access and use such functions within the Sites as Client shall authorize. Client shall (i) maintain, (ii) take appropriate steps to ensure that its officers and employees maintain, and (iii) inform all Authorized Persons of Client’s obligation to maintain, the confidentiality of User IDs and Access Codes and the security of the Sites. Client shall not permit any person other than an Authorized Person to access or use the Sites on its behalf or to use any User ID or Access Code and shall educate and familiarize those Authorized Persons who access and/or use the Sites with Client’s obligations under this Agreement. Client acknowledges and agrees that Client and/or its Authorized Persons may access the Sites through the World Wide Web or other Internet service which is not necessarily secure, and Bank of America does not warrant that such system is secure. Client agrees to be bound by all communications (and the consequences thereof) placed on, executed through or facilitated by the Sites that are accompanied by a valid User ID and a valid Access Code assigned to Client or an Authorized Person. Upon becoming aware of, or if Client suspects, a technical failure or any improper access to or use of the Sites or Access Codes by any Authorized Person or other person, Client shall promptly notify Bank of America of such occurrence, and shall, as promptly as practicable, to the extent any improper access or use is by an Authorized Person, take immediate actions to terminate such Authorized Person’s access to and use of the Sites. Bank of America reserves the right to limit or terminate Client’s or any Authorized Person’s access to and use of the Sites immediately and without notice. "

Kind regards,

Follow this link you will have a breakdown on our actual users. https://mtgox.com/press_release_20120201.html

Dear Mt.Gox users, we have been warned of a possible breach in Bitscapler’s (Bitscapler.com) user database, exposing user’s login and password information.

We are still waiting for an official announcement from Bitscalper about this leak, however we strongly suggest that any Mt.Gox’s users who use Bitscapler.com and who also happen to use the same credentials for both services, update their Mt.Gox password as soon as possible.

Thank you for your understanding.

At Mt.Gox we are always looking at ways to improve the security of our platform and for our users, so we are happy to announce that as of today 1,500 of our users accounts are protected by Yubikeys!

For those who already know, we have been offering Yubico’s Yubikey 2-Factor authentication to our customers so that they have an extra layer of security on their accounts (and the piece of mind to go with it).

For those who don’t know, the YubiKey is a special USB device that provides strong two-factor authentication, combing a standard “strong password” in conjunction with a physical device that generates an encrypted One Time Password- Yubikeys are as easy to use as inserting a USB Thumb drive into your computer, and pressing a button!

The device is waterproof, battery-free, weighs just 3 grams and 3mm thin (perfect for a keychain; they even added a hole for it!).  More than just being portable and handy, Yubikeys are designed to last at least 10 years and thus far has been able to withstand the demolition testing dealt out by our staff. (Seriously, we haven’t been able to break one! though we have tried.)

A stunningly practical use case for the device is for users who are using a shared computer or need to constantly jump from one PC/Mac to another; owning a Yubikey will eliminate the risk if your password stolen or leaked online *cough* and will add an irreplaceable layer of security to your data. Oh, and your bitcoins!

As you can tell, we’re quite proud of being able to offer such a practical and resilient product to our customers... and we think everyone should have one, which is why (depending on the area) we take a loss on many of the Yubikey’s we send.

Available at $29.90 USD Yubikeys can be purchased online through your Mt.Gox account and shipped to you, regardless of your location via EMS Priority!

https://mtgox.com/press_release_20120215.html

We are currently working on this... And HTML5 will help to bring many nice things!

Exactly! Trading Bitcoin is apparently a NO-NO in Apple's world. Still there are some other ways that we are working on.

Oh, well you are right, we are finishing up some stuff, but since we disclosed this at CES, I can use update this thread too. We are working on many things some of them you have seen already and includes

1. Our transparency Program https://mtgox.com/press_release_20120201.html
2. Brick & Mortar / E-Commerce solutions. We are polishing a few things but we will launch pretty soon our full Merchant solutions with VERY competitive fees ;-).
3. More trading tools. A few things will come for BTC Traders.

Cheers

We have been discussing this for a long time and even shared some data and discussed this with some of you at CES, what we published yesterday was in fact something we planed for a longtime. But your comments and others ones has been taken into consideration to make it happen.

Cheers

As stated in our first post : "Also, we plan to have this document verified by third party auditors for future release". There is not yet any auditing entity for this first publication. Once we have one, we will publish their information on the document and on our webpage. But please keep in mind that this may take time, not only to find the auditing company that will do the job we need, but it will also take time for them to audit us.

Sorry this is entirely my fault! Anyway this has been fixed.

Cheers

Yes you are correct, the monthly $5K of our servers cost is indeed included in the ¥5M Yen.

We have planed for this but don't expect an answer by tomorrow ;-). This part is scheduled to be audited for a better accuracy and to make sure that we are true to our words.

We are planning to update MtGox Live soon, don't worry.

Dear Mt.Gox Users,

It’s no secret that since Tibanne took over Mt.Gox in March 2011 we’ve had a bumpy road, both in terms of growth and security.  The violation of our exchange that took place in June has left an ominous cloud hanging over us and in part, Bitcion and the community.  It has taken us several months to reestablish the level of trust we have now, and we feel as the leading Bitcoin Exchange it is our place to continue to set the model of trust for companies whose business revolves around Bitcoin.

Today we will be putting up a deck, aptly called “Transparency” where you will find basic information about Mt.Gox including operation cost, basic security details, revenue, turnover and so on...

A update to this document will be done every three months or so and we plan to provide as much information as possible without breaching our companies security or competitive advantage. Also, please note that this iteration is a first attempt and we plan to refine subsequent attempts in an effort to be continually more accurate and clear. Your feedback on this deck is of course welcome!

Also, we plan to have this document verified by third party auditors for future releases, however we want to set a realistic expectation this may not happen by the next quarter.

We sincerely hope that our effort here will be mirrored by other exchanges, Bitcoin related business, and that we have the communities backing on this “move”.

Transparently,

The Mt.Gox Team.