How to disable iTunes Ping

For those of you who want the social networking aspect of iTunes, feel free to disgregard the following.

For those of us who value our privacy and use iTunes to manage their music because they simply have to, either because you have an iPod/iPhone/iOther device, or you are too lazy to find an alternative program to manage your music. Are you annoyed by the "ping" dropdown option that now shows up next to each song when selected in iTunes? Here is how you can disable iTunes Ping and remove the dropdown from the library interface.

DISABLE PING AS A SERVICE

1. Open the iTunes Store.

2. In the top-right corner, next to your account name, click the arrow button and select "account". Note: you may have to log-in to your iTunes account in order to proceed.

3. Under "Apple Account Information", scroll down to the "Ping" section. If the label shows, "Ping: ON", click on the "Turn Off" button.

4. Scroll further down to the "Recommendations & Ping Posting" label. If this is set to "On", click on the "Manage panel" button to the right. Uncheck "Show recommendations...", and click "Save Changes" to return to the account screen.

5. Click "Done" to return to the main iTunes store screen.


REMOVING PING FROM THE LIBRARY

1. If iTunes is open, close the application.

2.
In Mac OS X, launch the terminal and type:
defaults write com.apple.iTunes hide-ping-dropdown -bool TRUE


In Windows, launch the command prompt and type:
"C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe" /setPrefInt hide-ping-dropdown 1


3. Launch iTunes. Open your library. Rejoice!