An electronic commerce system for third party document reuse includes one or more document repositories that store a plurality of transaction documents. The system also includes a global content directory that includes a plurality of product and document classes organized in a hierarchy where each class categorizes a number of transaction documents and is associated with one or more attributes of the transaction documents categorized in the class. At least one of the classes has one or more associated pointers that identify the document repositories. The system further includes a search interface to search the document repositories for the transaction documents. An intelligence module segments the transaction documents into one or more sections to create generic documents from the transaction documents to allow buyers to reuse the transaction documents and still protect the confidential information contained in the transaction documents.