You're right - my examples (and google's motto) sound more deontological, or similar to the golden rule. Maybe someone who knows more about this can clarify.
I'm pretty sure it was just about not being Microsoft (and their anti-trust problems), using popup ads, or spamming, the things that were major problems that were ticking people off 7 or so years ago when that motto came about. I don't think it's very much beyond that.
Don't be evil was a competitive advantage.
Getting back to the topic of the submission, I always presumed that the comment basically meant, "Don't be like Microsoft." Many people call Microsoft the "Evil Empire", so this falls in nicely with that theme. By aligning themselves opposite Microsoft, Google is able to attract that population of hackers which does not appreciate Microsoft's business tactics (things like the FUD campaign that is going on right now in regards to patents). Whether Google is actually committed to moral business practices or not is debatable, but the motto is a nice way to appear "hacker-friendly".