It was. "Don't be evil" was their motto, since it no longer is means that it was phased out. The GP is wrong on the following motto which, IIRC, was/is "Do the right thing".
Yeah I think I mixed up the mission statement which is technically different (and more “official”) than the motto, which I believe was always unofficial and later made it into the code of conduct or something like it. When I was at Google they drilled the mission statement pretty intensely in internal comms.
The idea that Google always wanted to be evil but was stymied by that pesky motto and then decided "I know, I'll change the motto (but keep it in the code of conduct) and then I'll be free to be evil" is just disconnected from reality.