YouTube’s ad blocking crackdown is facing a new challenge: privacy laws | Privacy advocates argue YouTube’s ad blocker restrictions violate the European Union’s online privacy laws.::YouTube is launching a “global effort” to crack down on ad blockers, but some privacy advocates in the European Union argue that it’s illegal.
What matters is the association of the IP to a person or account. If you receive spam and block the source IP it’s not personal data. If you create an account on a website and they store your IP to it then it is.
Handling IPs for necessary technical service protection can also be acceptable without explicit consent as long as it’s limited/temporary (you may be able to handle that without account association in the first place anyway).