Eyebrows were raised and nudges exchanged over the sudden absence of Chris DeWolfe, the co-founder and chief executive of MySpace, at the Cannes Lions advertising festival, whose place on a panel discussion was taken by Wenda Harris Millard from no other than Yahoo.

It came after reports that News Corp had held talks about a swap of MySpace for a 30 per cent stake in Yahoo, where Ms Millard is chief sales officer.