A parked domain name is one that is taken, however it's not connected to any other service - web or email hosting. To put it differently, such a domain address will not open any actual content when 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 best thing about acquiring a domain name and parking it afterwards is that you will be able to keep it and not stress that somebody else could possibly register it meanwhile if, for example, the site for it is not ready yet. You may create a short-term Under Construction page for a parked Internet domain while you're working on your website, or direct it to another web address - temporarily or permanently. The latter option can be used if you have already registered domain.com, for example, and you obtain domain.net and domain.org, so as to protect a brand name or a trademark. In cases like this, the .net and .org domains can be parked and forwarded to the .com as you don't need separate sites for them.