A landmark “right to be forgotten” ruling against Google in Europe risks damaging the next generation of internet start-ups and strengthening the hand of repressive governments looking to restrict online communications, Larry Page, the search company’s chief executive, has warned.

Mr Page’s comments in an interview with the Financial Times came as Google bowed to this month’s European Court of Justice decision, introducing a mechanism that could lead to large amounts of private information being stripped from the widely used search service.

An online form, available from today, will give anyone in Europe an easy way to ask the US company to censor links to other internet sites that they think contain outdated and damaging information about them.