Information as a production factor and increasingly also as a competitive factor has developed into a critical business management factor1 Rehäuser, Jakob; Krcmar, Helmut (1996): Wissensmanagement in Unternehmen.Stuttgart: Lehrstuhl für Wirtschaftsinformatik, Univ. Hohenheim (Arbeitspapiere /Universität Hohenheim, Lehrstuhl für Wirtschaftsinformatik, 98). Hohenheim 1996. . The efficient handling of knowledge and information is considered necessary to secure one's market position against the competition.

Online commerce is a knowledge-intensive business. The success of communication policy measures depends significantly on the scope and rapid application of data from situational analysis and advertising control. Therefore, in e-commerce , especially for communication policy, an economical use of knowledge is required, i.e., systematic planning, management, organization, and control of knowledge 1 Rehäuser, Jakob; Krcmar, Helmut (1996): Wissensmanagement in Unternehmen.Stuttgart: Lehrstuhl für Wirtschaftsinformatik, Univ. Hohenheim (Arbeitspapiere /Universität Hohenheim, Lehrstuhl für Wirtschaftsinformatik, 98). Hohenheim 1996. . The following section briefly describes the characteristics and types of knowledge and outlines the relevant features of managing this resource.

In the literature there is still no agreement on a clear delimitation and definition of the term “knowledge ”3 Ahlert, Martin; Blaich, Günther; Spelsiek, Jan (2006): Vernetztes Wissen.Organisationale, motivationale, kognitive und technologische Aspekte desWissensmanagements in Unternehmensnetzwerken. Wiesbaden 2006. . Instead, the term is described by individual properties, components, or the process of its creation, depending on the author and discipline. For example, knowledge is defined as the next level in the hierarchy "signs → data → information".

According to this approach, characters such as "9" or "7" are located at the lowest level of the hierarchy1 Rehäuser, Jakob; Krcmar, Helmut (1996): Wissensmanagement in Unternehmen.Stuttgart: Lehrstuhl für Wirtschaftsinformatik, Univ. Hohenheim (Arbeitspapiere /Universität Hohenheim, Lehrstuhl für Wirtschaftsinformatik, 98). Hohenheim 1996. . Data consists of characters (e.g., "9.70") and represents "what is given for processing without instructions for use". The information, in turn, consists of data that has been placed within a problem context so that it can be used in a targeted manner. e.g. “€9.70”. Knowledge arises through human interaction based on information, when this information is used in a specific context, e.g. for “€9.70” as the price of a good or exchange rate 5 Nonaka, Ikujirō; Toyama, Ryoko; Hirata, Toru (2008): Managing flow. A processtheory of the knowledge-based firm. Basingstoke [England], New York 2008 . Thus, knowledge is always bound to a context and a process. and is primarily defined not as a subject itself, but as a process of context-specific interpretation of the information. Knowledge consists of a network of statements or judgments (“proposition”) that have been combined to form a claim (“statement”) 6 Beckenbach, Frank (2005): Knowledge representation and search processes: acontribution to the microeconomics of invention and innovation. Kassel 2005. . Metaknowledge, the next level, is knowledge about specific knowledge.