You’ve probably heard the Google motto: “Don’t be evil.” But how many companies take their own, self-proclaimed philosophy seriously?

I mean, “Better Living Through Chemistry” made plenty of people’s lives a mess through polluted manufacturing sites or lethal pesticides. And that “Good to the last drop” business? Well, if you’ve ever tasted the dregs of the coffee pot, you know what a bunch of hooey that is.

For some reason, however, Google’s “Don’t be evil” proclamation has irked folks. When the search engine giant was cowed by the Chinese government’s insistence on blocking Web sites, Google folded like a cheap beach chair.

And when crafty online ad campaigns touting flat stomachs or cheap teeth whitening began appearing alongside search results, the ethicists among us seethed with contempt about the evil scams that Google seemed to turn a blind eye to, all for the ad revenues.

All that’s changed.

The makers of the world’s dominant search engine now will not only boot this sort of ad from their results pages, they’re gonna boot the advertiser along with it.

Google chiefs have decided to ban advertisers who place ads that link to sites peddling “free trial” scams, get-rich-quick schemes and malware.

In the past, they’d sometimes ban individual ads, but not advertisers. What Google found was, just banning the ads did little to eliminate them.

Cyber scammers would merely get a new domain name (hence, a new site) for their nefarious products, create a new ad and be back in business trolling for suckers in a matter of hours, if not minutes.

Now, if an advertiser is permanently banned, their account and any new account will be banned from participating in AdWords. How does Google know if an advertiser is banned and just sets up a brand new account? Apparently, they’ve got a way, but they’re not letting anyone know about it for fear of encouraging workarounds.

The increased rate of account bans started back in October and they differ from old bans in a couple of key ways:

• They are permanent account bans, and
• Communication will be much clearer.

What about legitimate advertisers — can they be falsely blocked? Maybe, but Google says there’s an appeal process to fix mistakes. Advertisers will get an e-mail with ban details and directions on how to appeal it.

The question is: Will other online advertising outlets follow the same practice?

Google’s upping the ante for every ad-supported site. They’re betting consumers will prefer sites that don’t bombard them with scams for lower credit card rates, flatter stomachs, whiter teeth and longer… nails.