I am looking for a way to describe the target of a request/petition. This could be a person, an institution or a machine (common in the tech world). The word "receiver" is not specific enough for my taste and I feel it not only implies some kind of transfer but also a specific direction. I am trying to avoid this connotation because the target of a request could be requested to provide something, thus making it the opposite of a receiver.
I tried to google several variants of "word for target of a petition/request", but couldn't find anything useful. Then I decided to look for antonyms and thought "petitioner" would be a good search term. I looked at thesaurus.com, but it doesn't show any antonyms for my request. Neither does Merriam-Webster. I did find 13 antonyms at Power Thesaurus, but the only one that seems to have some semantic match is "responsor", which Merriam-Webster in turn defines as
the receiver component of an interrogator
This question goes in a similar direction, but has not been answered.
This question also goes in a similar direction, but then takes a computer-specific turn.
This question has almost the same basic idea, but has also not (really) been answered.
Is there even such a word in the English language?
