Registrar vs registry vs host: who can take a site down?

What does a registrar do?

A registrar is the company you buy the domain from. It sends your registration to the registry, renews it, holds the customer record, and lets you set the nameservers and the transfer lock.

A registrar can do two things that matter in a dispute. It can suspend the domain, which stops it resolving, and it can release what it knows about the customer. It cannot remove a page from a server, because it does not hold the content.

ICANN accredits registrars for generic extensions such as .com and binds them by the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement. Country-code extensions such as .de have their own rules, set by their registry.

Some services sell domains without an accreditation of their own; ICANN calls them resellers. PanamaRegistrar is one: the registrar of record is our ICANN-accredited registrar partner, shown in the RDAP record, which keeps its own legal duties and abuse contact. ICANN's RAA (§3.12) makes the registrar impose its rules on its resellers. Our Panamanian rules govern what DomaineGoat LLC does with your account, the data it holds and the complaints sent to it.

What does a registry do?

A registry runs one extension. It keeps the master database of every name under it, decides the extension's rules and publishes the zone that makes names resolve.

The registry keeps its own copy of each registration and sits in one country. IANA's root zone database lists the manager of each extension: Verisign in the United States for .com and .net, DENIC in Germany for .de, SIDN in the Netherlands for .nl, SWITCH in Switzerland for .ch (checked 19 October 2026).

Some registries are thin: Verisign keeps the domain, the registrar, the nameservers and the dates for .com and .net, but no registrant contact data. Others, such as .org at Public Interest Registry, hold the registrant record.

A registry can put a domain on hold, change its registrar or transfer it, under its own policies or an order from a court of its own country. It can do that without the registrar's agreement. That is the limit no registrar can remove, and the reason we publish the registry jurisdiction index.

What does a host do?

A host runs the server where the website, its files or its email live. It is usually a different company from the registrar, often in a third country.

The host is the only one of the three that can remove a single page while leaving the rest of the site online. It acts under its own terms of service and the law of its country, for example on a copyright notice. A DMCA notice, a US procedure, is mainly written for hosts.

If you use our nameservers, DNS records are stored with us; if you use your own, the DNS provider is a fourth party, with its own rules.

Who should a complaint go to?

To the party that controls the problem, which is often not the registrar.

• One page infringes copyright or is defamatory: the host, which can remove that page. At PanamaRegistrar, such a complaint needs a Panamanian court decision before any action on the domain.
• The whole domain is used for phishing, malware, a botnet, child abuse material or fraud: the abuse contact of the service or registrar. Ours is [email protected], no account needed, and these cases are suspended within 24 hours of a well-documented report.
• A trademark is used in the domain name itself: a UDRP provider (or the URS for new gTLDs), whose decision the registrar applies.
• A court decision exists: the registrar or registry in the court's own country, or recognition of the judgment where the registrar is. For us, that means exequatur in Panama.

How we sort complaints, step by step: how we handle complaints.

Worked example: a .com registered with PanamaRegistrar

Take example.com, registered with us, hosted by a company in Iceland, with Domain protection.

1. A US company sends us a copyright complaint. It is logged, gets an automatic acknowledgement with a reference number, and, as the domain has Domain protection, is read by a person before any action on the domain. Without a Panamanian court decision, the domain stays up. You are told before any action on your domain, unless the law or the court order forbids it.
2. The same company writes to the Icelandic host. The host decides under its own terms and Icelandic law. That decision does not involve us.
3. The company sues in the United States and wins an order against the domain. The order can go to Verisign, in Reston, Virginia, which can put the .com on hold or move it, without asking us.
4. The company files a UDRP complaint instead. It names the registrant of record, our company; we tell you so you can answer, lock the domain within 2 business days of the provider's request and apply the panel's decision.

1. The company sues in our registrar partner's country. A court there can order the registrar of record directly, without a Panamanian step.

Our Panamanian rules changed step 1 only. That is why the choice of extension matters as much as the choice of registrar.

Worked example: a .de registered with PanamaRegistrar

Take example.de. It is sold with Domain protection only, at $36.99 a year, so DENIC's record names DomaineGoat LLC, not you.

1. A German complaint reaches us. Same procedure as for a .com: read by a person, since a .de always has Domain protection, and no takedown without a Panamanian court decision, unless it falls in the strict exceptions.
2. The complainant goes to DENIC. DENIC is a German cooperative in Frankfurt and applies German law. A German court decision can reach the domain through DENIC, without us.
3. No UDRP. The UDRP is an ICANN policy for generic extensions; .de, a country code, follows DENIC's own rules. DENIC also asks a holder outside Germany to name an authorised recipient in Germany for legal documents when requested.
4. What DENIC can learn from its own file is our company's details, because the registration is in our name.

For a .de, the realistic exposure is German law through DENIC. The .de page gives the extension's rules and price.

Where does PanamaRegistrar fit?

We are the service layer. We control what our service does: the account, the data we hold, and what we ask our registrar partner to do, such as a suspension or the transfer lock. Domains are registered through our ICANN-accredited registrar partner. We do not control any registry, and we do not host websites.

PanamaRegistrar is a domain registration service under Panamanian jurisdiction, paid in crypto with no ID upload: we act on Panamanian court orders, not on unverified complaints. Prices start at $11.99 a year for a .com, on the price list.