i am also much crazy to get higher PR, but the moral i lost pr in last updation... can any one tell me the ideas to retain the pr?
I already mentioned that. The thread was started before the PR update, and after the update Google decided their so authoritative and awarded a PR10. Lol.. they are not even ranked for their name.
The web agency probably has many clients and they would have embedded the backlinks without their client's noticing.
Most likely they are working on .gov sites and the gov won't care any less for a backlink at the footer.