I think that the contractor would be required to change the software to include a notice, and if you removed it you would be modifying the software again. I suspect a judge would not look kindly on such shenanigans in any case.
My view is that if Amazon or Apple lawyers thought they could bypass the AGPL that easily, they would've done it already (just look at the stuff NVIDIA does to pretend that it's not flagrantly violating the GPL).
You can't change the code to remove the notice, but you could let the link expire. Or the frontend server, while adding your own branding, might remove the notice the backend added.
> I suspect a judge would not look kindly on such shenanigans in any case.
I completely agree there, but they still need to find the license clause sufficiently correct and in scope if they want to throw the book at you.
My view is that if Amazon or Apple lawyers thought they could bypass the AGPL that easily, they would've done it already (just look at the stuff NVIDIA does to pretend that it's not flagrantly violating the GPL).