Lately, mobile device users seem to be more aware than ever of privacy issues tied to sharing their location. But what do consumers love more than keeping a handle on their own privacy? Discounts. According to a report from mobile engagement firm JiWire, more than half of all consumers are willing to exchange their mobile location data for content that is relevant to them at the moment, such as coupons, promotions, directions, and product information.

JiWire's latest report is based on mobile ad data collected from 450,000 public WiFi hotspots combined with surveys from 2,800 randomly selected JiWire WiFi Media Channel customers between April and June of 2011. According to the data, 90 percent of those users own a laptop, 58 percent own smartphones, and 32 percent own tablets, with smaller numbers of users owning dedicated MP3 players, gaming devices, e-readers, and netbooks. (For those curious, the company says iOS devices made up 81.9 percent of the second quarter's user data, with Android coming in second at 10.5 percent and Windows Phone third at 4.04 percent.)

Of those users, 53 percent were willing to share their location info in order to get "relevant" content delivered to them, which JiWire says is up from 51 percent in the first quarter of the year. When split out from the rest of the population, adults under the age of 34 were even more willing, with 60 percent saying they would be happy to share their locations in exchange for content that might help them save money or make a better decision about a product or store.

For example, sales and promotions were at the top of 29 percent of users' priority lists (if they are within one mile of the location), closely followed by customer reviews at 21 percent and directions at 15 percent. Nine percent of customers said coupons were the most important to them when they were determined to be within one mile of a location, too, though according to JiWire, "[c]onsumers are 3x more likely to respond to sales and promotional offers over coupons regardless of proximity."

The results might take some by surprise, especially given the somewhat negative press this year on how companies are handling location-based data. Apple's own "Locationgate" led the wave of privacy concerns, soon followed by Android and even Windows Phone 7. And given the lawsuits that have popped up following those incidents, it's clear that there's a certain subset of consumers who are not okay with their location being collected and potentially shared with third parties—at least not without their consent. But there's also a subset of consumers—apparently the large majority—who would rather trade certain inconveniences as long as they get something free or valuable in return.

In this case, the inconvenience is sharing the private location data and the tradeoff is the potential savings from seeing the latest promotions or coupons. So long as users are handing over that information voluntarily, we see no problem with trying to save a little coin, even if it does mean that someone at a marketing firm far, far away knows I was lurking near the local "adult shop" that one day.