Quote Originally Posted by Sigurd Fafnesbane
You have a white background, and you want to make the text labels of your icons transparent?
yes

Is this because you do have a desktop wallpaper in addition to the white background?
yes
The disabling of shadows under desktop items gives you background colour on the icon labels.
Also if you have an active desktop it will give you background coloured icon labels.
indeed
To make them transparent you have to enable Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop.
Then if it applies:
Disable web-content on your desktop.
(Uncheck all items in Desktop Items – ([right click] desktop -> Properties -> Customize desktop -> Web)).
If this fails – ([right click] desktop -> Arrange Icons by -> Lock Web items on desktop)
they still have a white background (so black text in a white box on a white-ish desktop background)