Keep the icon tags in the KML, but don't insert a value:

Code:

---

  
  <Style>
    <icon></icon>
  </Style>

---

One might assume that stripping out the <Style> tags would do the trick, but in that case both 2.2 and GE will use the default "pushpin" icon.

Your answer is the best one, but you can also make it transparent and/or set the size to zero.

Thanks for the answer. Leaving it empty between the icon tags works great. However, now I want to get a little fancier...

Can I set the centroid of the label to be upper left instead of the exact center of the text?