The README.md file doesn't give enough information to let one build a copy of geoipupdate with non-default directories - at least, not if one is a go novice. It looks as if the correct approach is something like:
cd $HOME/go/src/github.com/maxmind/geoipupdate and do:
set CONFFILE=/some/path/myGeoIP.conf
set DATADIR=/some/path/to/data/dir
make
But this doesn't work. It would be nice if README.md could include the correct steps to achieve the desired results.