Tucows has made it pretty clear that they use expired domains that are registered with them, to build it’s portfolio instead of offering them to the public like SnapNames.com, Afternic.com and NameJet.com auction services do. So if you were to search their auction service, you might notice that several common/popular domains are "missing".
They hold back All 4 letter .com domains for themself (plus anything valuable.. generics etc) and do not offer them for sale to the public until they fully expire and reach their daily growing portfolio. If you were ever interested in seeing what they are holding back, here is the current list of 4 Letter .com’s that are Expired and waiting to head to the Tucows Portfolio. I have included the Domain Name, Creation Date and Expiration Date. I ran this scan this morning, so it is pretty accurate. If the old owner happened to renew, Tucows would allow them to have the domain, but that leaves only 1 person, instead of 6 Billion to have the chance at owning it "Fairly" IMO.
www.dotweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/Tucows Holding.xls
154 domain names total.
