A parked domain is one which is taken, however it's not connected to any other service - web or e-mail hosting. In other words, this kind of domain name won't open any actual content when you type it within a web browser, but no one can take it as you've already registered it and you are its owner. The benefit of obtaining a domain and parking it afterwards is the fact that you’re able to keep it and not worry that somebody else might register it in the meantime if, for example, the website for it is not ready yet. You could set a temporary Under Construction website page for a parked Internet domain while you're working on your website, or direct it to some other web address - temporarily or permanently. The latter option can be used when you have already registered domain.com, for example, and you acquire domain.net and domain.org, so as to protect a brand name or a trademark. In cases like this, the .net and .org domain addresses can be parked and forwarded to the .com since you do not need different sites for them.