chrome.webRequest.onBeforeRequest.addListener Cannot read property 'onBeforeRequest' of undefined

I'm trying to build my own chrome extension and I'm trying to add an event handler using onBeforeRequest.

My manifest.json:

{
    "manifest_version": 2,

    "name": "My extension",
    "description": "some descrpition",
    "version": "1.0",
    "permissions": [
        "activeTab",
        "tabs",
        "webRequest",
        "webNavigation",
        "management",
        "http://*/*",
        "https://*/*"
    ],
    "background": {
        "scripts": [
            "js/jquery-2.1.4.min.js",
            "js/background.js"
        ],
        "persistent": true
     },
    "browser_action": {
        "default_icon": "imgs/img.png",
        "default_title": "extension"
    },
    "icons" : {
      "64" : "imgs/vergrootglas.png"  
    }
}

My background.js:

function callback(param1,param2,param3){
    alert(param1);
    alert(param2);
    alert(param3);
}
//alert("test");



chrome.webRequest.onBeforeRequest.addListener(callback);

I got this loaded into my chrome. But everytime I get this message in my console:

Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'onBeforeRequest' of undefined

I can't figure out what I'm oding wrong, I've found this: https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/webRequest

But the example of the code seems to be quite the same as what I do. What am I missing here?

The comments above don't make sense to me. There is a background script above and it seems to have appropriate permissions... Some extra comments that might help...

You need to add a background page in the manifest file and the appropriate permissions in the manifest so the background page can access the webRequest APIs. See this example: chrome.webRequest not working?

As Mihai mentioned, if you need to have the content script perform the action, check this page out: https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/messaging

Add this to your content script (you can change greeting to action and hello to which action the background script should perform):

chrome.runtime.sendMessage({greeting: "hello"}, function(response) {
   console.log(response.farewell);
});

Add this to your background page (you can do if statements and peform different actions based on the message):

chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(
  function(request, sender, sendResponse) {
    console.log(sender.tab ?
                "from a content script:" + sender.tab.url :
                "from the extension");
    if (request.greeting == "hello")
      sendResponse({farewell: "goodbye"});
  });