Just after the end of last week’s Web 2.0 conference and expo, the Silicon Valley WebGuild has posted an outrageous diatribe against Tim O’Reilly.

WebGuild created an event that they called the Web 2.0 Conference & Expo, which does sound quite a bit like O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 Expo. WebGuild argues that the Web 2.0 term is generic, and that they have every right to use this name in their event.

I can sympathize with their viewpoint, and I think the right answer here is not at all clear. But then WebGuild organized another event called Future of Web Apps, which just happens to exactly match the name of a Carsonified event. This starts to look an awful lot like a pattern of mimicking the names of well-known events. It smells like deceptive advertising to me.

Now Google has withdrawn their backing from WebGuild, and will no longer sponsor their events or provide meeting space for them. In response, WebGuild’s Daya Baran posted an article titled Shame On You Tim O’Reilly, in which he lashes out at the individual at Google who delivered the message, and at Tim O’Reilly, whom he accuses of pressuring Google managers to drop their support of WebGuild.

I understand their anger at losing Google’s support, but their response is unhelpful and inappropriate. Rather than being driven by pressure from Tim, I think it is far more likely that Google simply did not want to be associated with an organization with a pattern of deceptive marketing.

Among the gems in this post are the sentences “When I met him, I cordially introduced myself, however, O’Reilly was a despicable individual. He is a dinosaur whose time has past.” This goes way over the line. Personalizing business disputes in this way helps nothing and just makes WebGuild look bad.

I’ve had the good fortune to know Tim casually for a long time. (When I moved the Microprocessor Report business to Sebastopol in 1990, O’Reilly was already here.) Although I have no business relationship with him, I’ve always found him to be a straight-shooter and someone of great insight. I don’t think anyone who really knows Tim would make this kind of statement. He has every right to defend the conference business that he has made a substantial investment in creating. If I were in his shoes, I’m not sure I would go after other organizations using the Web 2.0 term in event names, but he has every right to try.

It’s an interesting question just how far others can go in using phrases like “Web 2.0 Conference & Expo,” but it’s crystal clear to me from WebGuild’s pattern of event naming, and the way they chose to deal with Google’s withdrawal of support, that this is not an organization I would want to associate with.