A parked domain address is one which is taken, however it's not associated with any other service - web or email hosting. In other words, this kind of domain address will not open any actual content in case you type it inside an Internet browser, but no one else can take it as you have already registered it and you are its owner. The benefit of acquiring a domain name and parking it afterwards is the fact that you’re able to keep it and not worry that someone else might register it in the meantime if, for example, the site for it is not ready yet. You could set a temporary Under Construction webpage for a parked domain name while you're working on your web site, or forward it to some other web address - temporarily or permanently. The second option can be used if you have already registered domain.com, for example, and you get 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 directed to the .com since you do not need individual websites for them.