Ping is a feature in some versions of iTunes, and you can easily disable Ping in the newest version of iTunes 10.1. (Remember, despite sharing a name Ping in iTunes which is a social network of sorts is completely different from ping at the command line which confirms if an IP address is available or not).

This works on both Mac OS X and Windows versions of iTunes 10.1:

Stop Ping from showing in iTunes

Download iTunes 10.1

Open iTunes Preferences

Under “Show” uncheck the box next to “Ping”

Click OK

This will stop Ping from being displayed, but we can go further and completely disable the service.

Disable Ping in iTunes completely

From within iTunes, open iTunes Preferences

Click on Parental controls

Under “Disable” select the checkbox next to “Ping”

I’m not sure why the ability to disable Ping is under Parental Controls but it does work to turn off the service completely.

You can combine these two tips and all references to Ping will now be removed and the service will be disabled from iTunes.

Although not officially advertised as part of the iTunes 10.1 release, this is a very easy way to turn off the Ping service.

Previously, you had to manually disable Ping buttons and disable the Ping sidebar through a series of Terminal commands.