Sudan: Millions of people use Google Earth's online satellite images every day for school projects, to gain a snapshot of life around the globe or simply to see what their house looks like from outer space.
But now the web service is being used to highlight atrocities in Sudan's Darfur region, where more than 250,000 people have been killed in four years of fighting.
In a project with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, launched this week, the internet search company has updated its service with high-resolution satellite images of flattened villages and sprawling aid camps.
Sara Bloomfield, the museum's director, said that with 200 million users, Google Earth was the ideal way to raise awareness about what has happening in Darfur. "This is like the world's biggest bulletin board," she said.
The project combines the museum's Darfur database with clickable images on the ground to generate what its creators call a "community of conscience" among internet users.
Anyone who has downloaded Google Earth's software can now view more than 1,600 villages throughout Darfur which have been destroyed, comprising more than 130,000 homes, schools and mosques.
The images have been enhanced so that users - guided by flame-shaped icons - can zoom in to see the burnt remnants of houses.
Viewers can also see photographs and personal accounts of people who have lost family members and homes to the violence.
More than two million people have been displaced since rebels took up arms against what they saw as an Arab-dominated regime in Khartoum intent on sidelining Darfur's farming tribe. The government responded by unleashing mounted Arab militias - known as Janjaweed - on a scorched earth policy.
The US has described the attacks as genocide but Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir has always denied atrocities have taken place.
In a statement, Google Earth organisers said the new service served "as an unequivocal indictment of the Janjaweed, and of the Sudanese government whose implicit support it has enjoyed". They added: "This is the kind of evidence that puts paid to the claims still coming out of Khartoum that the ethnic cleansing is not widespread."
At times the region has been closed to journalists, while charity workers have been expelled for reporting government bombing raids. Supporters hope the new service will raise awareness of Darfur's plight and make it impossible for abuses to continue out of sight.
Daowd Salih, a native of Darfur and a former officer for the German Red Cross, said: "We need President Bashir and other perpetrators to know they are being watched."