This is quite a leap from unnecessary phone home request to check version, but alas it already has been answered in depth in other comments.
Running a service that might serve an EU citizen quickly escalates to involving lawyers and performing risk analysis in relation to being sued in a court across the ocean.
Running any service where you are not sure of legal requirements might require consulting a lawyer first, how is it unique to GDPR? And in order to be on the radar for GDPR violations as a small business you REALLY need to do something seriously wrong.
I've always believed GDPR was a regulation that crossed borders. Meaning it applies to any EU citizen, no matter where they are located, which is what made this unique (being that it's not my countries laws). But:
> The GDPR applies to: > > a company established outside the EU and is offering goods/services (paid or for free) or is monitoring the behaviour of individuals in the EU.
from https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/data-protection/r...
So now I'm wondering if an IP address reverse-geo lookup to block IPs in the EU is the easy way out for many online services, presuming that this doesn't cause compliance issues for EU users using a VPN.