(Snopes.comSnopes)
Fact-checking website Snopes said it may shut down over a dispute with a vendor that is withholding advertising revenue.
The 23-year-old site announced on Monday said it was "in danger of closing its doors" over a dispute with Proper Media, whom Snopes founder David Mikkelson claimed is holding Snopes "hostage" by barring the site from making modifications, placing new ads, and receiving revenue from existing ads.
A GoFundMe set up by Snopes to fund its staff of 16 and operating costs had raised over $200,000 within hours of launching on Monday.
"In a general sense, I'm chagrined, because we have always been a self-supporting company, and I don't like asking the public for money," Mikkelson told Business Insider in an interview. "But we've been boxed into this position, we've been cut off from what we usually get, we don't have any other way."
Snopes' fundraising drive caps what is a contract and partial-acquisition gone wrong.
In 2015, Mikkelson contracted with Proper Media to provide web development services to help grow the site and add advertising revenue. But when Mikkelson and his wife divorced in 2016, the five individuals who own equity in Proper Media became more involved by purchasing his ex-wife's 50% share of Snopes' parent company, Bardav, which they financed by taking out a substantial loan.
But in the months since the purchase, Mikkelson clashed with the company, which he felt was siphoning off too much advertising revenue from Snopes, and which he claimed was not performing essential services like sharing ad revenue in a timely fashion and sharing web traffic information.
Earlier this year, Proper Media shareholder Vincent Green resigned from the company and joined Snopes, which Mikkelson claims gives the two of them majority control of Bardav, and allowed them to terminate the contract between Proper Media and Snopes.
For its part, Proper Media claimed that Mikkelson and Green are in breach of contract, saying Green's share of the company did not travel with him when he joined Snopes.
The site suggested that Mikkelson has "repeatedly engaged in fraud upon Proper Media" in an "effort to obtain approval for Bardav to pay Mikkelson a sizable salary and large sums of Mikkelson’s personal expenses," including a $10,000 company traveling expense to pay for Mikkelson's honeymoon with his wife Elyssa Young, who is also a Snopes employee.
And counter to Mikkelson's claim, last week, Proper Media released $100,000 to Bardav recently with a judge's stipulation that Mikkelson would not be allowed to manage the money.