Consultant and Advisor at Independent
Leading Google's Privacy Sandbox initiative and championing the deprecation of third-party cookies, Temkin is the central figure in the industry's shift toward privacy-preserving advertising technologies.
Last updated Feb 27, 2026 by AI Enrichment
David Temkin is best known as the driving force behind Google's Privacy Sandbox, the most ambitious and consequential privacy initiative in digital advertising history. As Vice President of Ads Privacy and Trust at Google, he led the multi-year effort to deprecate third-party cookies in Chrome and develop privacy-preserving alternatives — including the Topics API, FLEDGE/Protected Audience API, and Attribution Reporting API — that would allow the open web advertising ecosystem to function without cross-site tracking. His work placed him at the epicenter of a global debate involving advertisers, publishers, regulators, and privacy advocates, and his 2021 blog post announcing Google's commitment to not building alternative user-level identifiers sent shockwaves through the industry. Throughout his tenure at Google, Temkin navigated extraordinary complexity, engaging with the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and ICO as part of formal regulatory commitments around the Privacy Sandbox, while simultaneously working to bring the broader ad industry along on a technical and philosophical transformation. His role required balancing Google's commercial interests with genuine privacy advancement and regulatory scrutiny, making him one of the most closely watched executives in AdTech during the late 2010s and early 2020s. Since departing Google, Temkin has emerged as an influential independent voice, advising companies on privacy strategy, identity solutions, and cookieless readiness. His deep expertise in privacy-preserving measurement, browser-based advertising APIs, and regulatory compliance makes him a sought-after consultant as the industry continues to grapple with the post-cookie transition — a transition he did more than almost anyone to define.
Google (2020-2023)
Google (2018-2020)
Google (2014-2018)