[MUSIC PLAYING]
DOUG STEVENSON: Hey, everyone.
We're back.
You're watching "Meet Firebase" and we're
in the middle of an interview with Mike Bonnell.
Mike, tell me, what do you like about working with the Firebase
team?
MIKE BONNELL: Yeah.
I think it's just getting to help developers
go build awesome apps.
Right?
Like we're just helping remove obstacles to app
creation and app development.
And there's so many ways that we can improve
the world through apps, either through health care
and medicine-- is it through improved access to education
and technology?
When I was on the way here, one of the drivers in the car I
was in talked about how he had used
Google and YouTube to teach himself English,
because he was an immigrant.
And so he was like, I watched YouTube videos and things
like that.
And so I think just the power that we
have at Google to make people's lives better is awesome.
And I think Firebase is a key component
of that with app creation.
DOUG STEVENSON: Yeah.
We had Michael Bly was on the show earlier.
And he said something similar, just empowering developers.
It's almost like a force multiplier
where you can help one person or two people,
but when you're creating a platform that
helps hundreds of thousands of developers now, you know,
that's impact.
Right?
MIKE BONNELL: Yeah.
Well, and I think it's the hundreds of thousands
of developers, but it's also there are millions
upon millions of users.
So if you think about, like, crash reporting, for example,
is something that I've worked on for a while.
And that, like, the more we can help developers
solve those crashes, the more people can use their apps
and use their phones without problems.
That means all of those people are having a better day.
DOUG STEVENSON: Yeah.
Well, yeah, nobody likes it when their app crashes, for sure.
MIKE BONNELL: Neither the developers nor the users, so.
DOUG STEVENSON: It seems like something,
you know-- it's almost like something
you'd think we'd have solved by now.
Like the crashes seem like--
isn't there just enough knowledge out there
that we can prevent them all?
But it never seems to be a shortage of bugs in programs.
Is there a way to solve that?
Is there a way to just, like, eliminate them altogether?
MIKE BONNELL: I think that we're starting to talk about robots
and AI writing the apps for us.
DOUG STEVENSON: Yeah, maybe.
I mean, well, you know, there's like preventative tools.
There's, like, linters and things
like that, that are smarter about catching errors
before they get into your app.
But then it seems like it can be totally effective in that.
MIKE BONNELL: Yeah.
I think we've come a long way.
Like linters and things like that definitely help.
But if you think about, like, five or six years ago,
back when Crashlytics were started,
we didn't even have good crash reporting.
Right?
Like you just had to manually get a symbol file,
match it with a random crash that you
got from Apple or things like that,
and then do manual symbolication for every single crash.
And we process many, many crashes.
And so just even handling that part makes it a lot easier.
But we have actually, in Firebase and Fabric,
launched what's called Crash Insights.
And that is where we've kind of scanned crashes
that affect many apps and try to figure out solutions for those
and present those to developers.
So I think we are actually starting
to get there, where it's like we can't stop
the crashes from happening, but if we know the solution,
we can let you know.
DOUG STEVENSON: But it seems like also a lot of apps
might use the same library.
And then you end up with the same crash in the same library
that many apps are using.
It seems like that could-- if we could squash that,
that seems like impactful.
MIKE BONNELL: Yeah.
I think that's a really interesting area
to dig into more.
And who knows?
DOUG STEVENSON: Who knows.
So Firebase just announced that it's GDPR compliant.
What does that mean?
What's GDPR?
MIKE BONNELL: So GDPR stands for General Data and Privacy
Regulations.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
General Data Privacy Reg.
OK.
MIKE BONNELL: Yes.
And so this is coming out of the EU.
And so it's just a complete revamp of privacy legislation,
probably the biggest one in the past 30 or 40 years.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
MIKE BONNELL: And so it's, I think, something that's
on a lot of developers' minds.
I know it's been on my mind for the past year or so.
It's been a lot of work to become GDPR compliant
because it's a kind of a fundamental rethink in app
privacy.
DOUG STEVENSON: Right.
And so what have you done to sort of help that along?
MIKE BONNELL: Yeah.
So I've done a lot of work on the documentation side
of things, which is kind of working with our legal counsel
and engineering teams to kind of figure
out like, hey, what policies do we have in place?
And if developers want to become GDPR compliant, what can
we do to help them do that?
And a lot of this is around just making sure
that you have clear consent from your users.
It's just about what data is being collected
and how it's being used.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
So what does it look like, consent from your users?
MIKE BONNELL: Yeah.
So a lot of this is this is like a pop-up
or a dialogue when the app is first launched
or something like that and just kind of saying like, hey, we're
going to collect your email address because we
want to send you an email.
Right?
Or we want to click analytics data because we
want to see which parts of our apps are being used or not,
so we know where to focus our time.
DOUG STEVENSON: So you have to give some sort of rationale.
Because you have to say what you're trying to collect
and why you want to collect it.
MIKE BONNELL: Yeah, exactly.
And make it really clear that users
can opt out of that at any point in time as well.
So it's being much more--
DOUG STEVENSON: That's like--
it's very upfront and honest about what you're doing.
Right?
MIKE BONNELL: Yeah.
DOUG STEVENSON: I mean, it's not like--
I think the concerns from a lot of users
is that apps are just silently harvesting information
without any understanding of what is being
done with that information.
And that seems like a valid concern.
MIKE BONNELL: Yeah.
I think it is a valid concern.
I think a lot of times apps are trying
to act in good faith for it.
Like again, we want to collect crash reports so that we
can make the app more stable.
And as a result of that, we might
want to store your email address with that crash
so that we can reach out to you, letting
you know when the crash is fixed,
or letting you know, hey, we need information to solve
this crash, how can we do that?
But I think a lot of times that wasn't clear,
why you were asking for this information.
So I think that's one of the big changes with GDPR.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
Yeah.
And I know that with Firebase, there's
been a very firm stance that we don't collect PII, so
Personally Identifiable Information.
Does GDPR add to that or does it complement that?
MIKE BONNELL: Yeah.
So GDPR really is on Personally Identifiable Information.
So it's like if you're going to try and upload my contacts,
like then you need to be very clear as to why
you're doing that.
If you want to log my phone number,
then you need to be very clear as to why you're doing that.
And so I think it's a much bigger focus
on forcing app developers and companies around the world
to be focused on user privacy in a way
that we haven't seen before.
So I'm personally excited by it, because I think
it's a great shift in focus.
DOUG STEVENSON: Yeah.
Yeah.
It sounds like both developers and users
will benefit from this.
MIKE BONNELL: Yeah.
Because if you think, there's been many apps in years past
that have done kind of really shady stuff
with user data or things like that.
And so I think this is really going to prevent that.
And the fines for noncompliance are fairly high.
So it's up to 4% of your daily revenue--
of the company's daily revenue.
DOUG STEVENSON: Wow.
That seems fairly steep, it will cut into your margins
pretty well.
MIKE BONNELL: So that's, I think,
the stick is strong with GDPR.
And I think that's also a big difference
that we've seen from other privacy
regulations in the past.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
And you said this comes from the EU.
So that's where the legislation is starting.
MIKE BONNELL: Passed, yeah.
DOUG STEVENSON: Oh, OK.
OK.
So how is that--
I mean is that being adopted around the world?
MIKE BONNELL: So it's interesting,
because it's effective May 25, 2018.
And so we're seeing lots of apps trying
to become compliant ahead of time,
because otherwise you can suffer from these penalties.
But the key part is that if any of the users of your app
are in the EU, then you're subject to GDPR.
And so it's kind of like GDPR being spread around the world,
because most companies have users in Europe
in some way, shape, or form.
And so if you have end users in Europe,
then you need to comply with these laws.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK, yeah.
Because I know on the Android app store,
typically you just publish everywhere,
like all the countries, right?
So if you want to keep doing that,
you probably need to be thinking about this, even if you--
like if you live in the United States,
even if you're not personally held by that,
a big chunk of your users may be.
And so you're still forced to think about it in some way.
MIKE BONNELL: Yeah.
You are forced to think about it.
And Fabric and Firebase, since they process this information,
we're also responsible for that.
And so that's why we have to be very
clear about what we're using user data for
and things like that.
Just pretty much to provide Firebase--
so like we're using it to provide the service.
You're storing data in RTDB or Firestore
so that you don't have a back end.
But it's so that you can have an app.
DOUG STEVENSON: Yeah.
It's-- definitely go read about that.
Check that out if you haven't done so already,
because you're likely affected even
if you don't know that you are.
MIKE BONNELL: Yeah.
And there's some great documentation on the Firebase
documentation site.
So be sure and check that out.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
Yeah.
We'll put some links to that in the description below,
as usual.
MIKE BONNELL: Awesome.
DOUG STEVENSON: Well, Mike, thanks for being on the show.
MIKE BONNELL: Doug, it was a pleasure.
DOUG STEVENSON: Yeah.
And thank you for tuning in.
So be sure to subscribe here to the Firebase Channel
to get more great video content like this
and meet more DevRel like Mike.
And I'll see you here next time.
MIKE BONNELL: [TWEET]
DOUG STEVENSON: All sides.
MIKE BONNELL: That means we have to switch seats.
Do you know what this is?
DOUG STEVENSON: A card?
MIKE BONNELL: No shoes on the field.
DOUG STEVENSON: What is this?
MIKE BONNELL: That's OK.
I have another one.
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